Land restoration, which may include renaturalisation or

rewilding Rewilding is a form of ecological restoration aimed at increasing biodiversity and restoring natural processes. It differs from other forms of ecological restoration in that rewilding aspires to reduce human influence on ecosystems. It is also d ...

, is the process of restoring land to a different or previous state with an intended purpose. That purpose can be a variety of things such as what follows: being safe for humans, plants, and animals; stabilizing ecological communities; cleaning up pollution; creating novel ecosystems; or restoring the land to a historical condition, for example how

indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

managed the land. Ecological destruction or degradation, to which land restoration serves as an antidote, is usually the consequence of human influence's intended or unintended consequences. This can include

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. Ab ...

, salination, or species endangerment, among many more. Land restoration is not the same as

land reclamation Land reclamation, often known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lake ...

, where existing

ecosystems An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...

are altered or destroyed to give way for cultivation or construction. Land restoration can enhance the supply of valuable

ecosystem services Ecosystem services are the various benefits that humans derive from Ecosystem, ecosystems. The interconnected Biotic_material, living and Abiotic, non-living components of the natural environment offer benefits such as pollination of crops, clean ...

that benefit people.

Initial steps

In order to increase the chances for successful landscape restoration, several key parameters need to be determined. A shared understanding of the definition of restoration should be defined for the project. As there can be many different motivations for landscape restoration – influenced by personal or environmental ethics, opinions, priorities, available data, economics, etc. – the definition of the term can mean different things to different people and has changed over time. Additionally, in order to monitor the success of a restoration project, a ''reference model'' or reference ecosystem should be selected in order to make comparisons. Along with this, proper surveys of existing conditions should take place. Furthermore, design considerations like restoration methods, contingency plans, monitoring, maintenance, permits, resources, budget, and timeline need to be known and will influence landscape restoration capabilities.

Adaptive management

Adaptive management Adaptive management, also known as adaptive resource management or adaptive environmental assessment and management, is a structured, iterative process of robust decision making in the face of uncertainty, with an aim to reducing uncertainty ove ...

is "an approach for simultaneously managing and learning about natural resources." It is the primary method used for managing land restoration projects because natural resources can respond to management techniques but the longevity and desirability of those responses are uncertain and dependent on controllable and uncontrollable factors. Therefore, adapting how a project is managed based on responses from the ecosystem is a more informed approach to landscape restoration.

Traditional ecological knowledge

Traditional ecological knowledge Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is a cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans ...

has had increase significance and usage in landscape restoration spheres. Using traditional ecological knowledge alongside '' Western ecological knowledge'' is becoming the more mainstream approach to landscape restoration, as many landscapes have evolved alongside humans over thousands of years, and because often times the ideal landscape used as the ''reference ecosystem'' is the pre-colonial ecological landscape. Auwahi Dryland Forest

Case study: countering desertification

Land reclamation in deserts involves *setting up reliable water provisioning (e.g. by digging

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

s or placing long-distance water pipes) *stabilizing and fixating the soil Stabilizing and fixating the soil is usually done in several phases. The first phase is fixating the soil to such extent that dune movement is ceased. This is done by grasses, and plants providing wind protection such as shelterbelts,

windbreak A windbreak (shelterbelt) is a planting usually made up of one or more rows of trees or shrubs planted in such a manner as to provide shelter from the wind and to protect soil from erosion. They are commonly planted in hedgerows around the ed ...

s and woodlots. Shelterbelts are wind protections composed of rows of trees, arranged perpendicular to the prevailing wind, while woodlots are more extensive areas of woodland. The second phase involves improving/enriching the soil by planting nitrogen-fixating plants and using the soil immediately to grow crops. Nitrogen fixating plants used include

clover Clovers, also called trefoils, are plants of the genus ''Trifolium'' (), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution with the highest diversit ...

, yellow mustard, beans, etc., and food crops include

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

beans A bean is the seed of some plants in the legume family (Fabaceae) used as a vegetable for human consumption or animal feed. The seeds are often preserved through drying (a ''pulse''), but fresh beans are also sold. Dried beans are tradition ...

peas Pea (''pisum'' in Latin) is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable. Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name ''Pisum sativum ...

sweet potatoes The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its sizeable, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable, which is a staple food in parts of the ...

, date,

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...

s, limes, figs,

apricot An apricot (, ) is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus ''Prunus''. Usually an apricot is from the species '' P. armeniaca'', but the fruits of the other species in ''Prunus'' sect. ''Armeniaca'' are also ...

guava Guava ( ), also known as the 'guava-pear', is a common tropical fruit cultivated in many tropical and subtropical regions. The common guava '' Psidium guajava'' (lemon guava, apple guava) is a small tree in the myrtle family (Myrtaceae), nativ ...

tomato The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible Berry (botany), berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originate ...

, certain

herb Herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typically distingu ...

s, etc. Regardless of the cover crop used, the crops (not including any trees) are each year harvested and/or plowed into the soil (e.g. with clover). In addition, each year the plots are used for another type of crop (known as

crop rotation Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. This practice reduces the reliance of crops on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, along with the pro ...

) to prevent depleting the soil on specific trace elements. A recent development is the

Seawater Greenhouse A seawater greenhouse is a greenhouse structure that enables the growth of crops and the production of fresh water in arid regions. Arid regions constitute about one third of the Earth's land area. Seawater greenhouse technology aims to mitigate i ...

and Seawater Forest. This proposal is to construct these devices on coastal deserts in order to create fresh water and grow food. A similar approach is the Desert Rose concept. These approaches are of widespread applicability, since the relative costs of pumping large quantities of seawater inland are low. Another related concept is ADRECS – a proposed system for rapidly delivering soil stabilisation and re-forestation techniques coupled with renewable energy generation.http://www.claverton-energy.com/download/320/

References

External links