Transforming ecosystems: When, where, and how to restore contaminated sites

Abstract

Chemical contamination has impaired ecosystems, reducing biodiversity and the provisioning of functions and services. This has spurred a movement to restore contaminated ecosystems and develop and implement national and international regulations that require it. Nevertheless, ecological restoration remains a young and rapidly growing discipline and its intersection with toxicology is even more nascent and underdeveloped. Consequently, we provide guidance to scientists and practitioners on when, where, and how to restore contaminated ecosystems. Although restoration has many benefits, it also can be expensive, and in many cases systems can recover without human intervention. Hence, the first question we address is: “When should we restore contaminated ecosystems?” Second, we provide suggestions on what to restore—biodiversity, functions, services, all 3, or something else—and where to restore given expected changes to habitats driven by global climate change. Finally, we provide guidance on how to restore contaminated ecosystems. To do this, we analyze critical aspects of the literature dealing with the ecology of restoring contaminated ecosystems. Additionally, we review approaches for translating the science of restoration to on-the-ground actions, which includes discussions of market incentives and the finances of restoration, stakeholder outreach and governance models for ecosystem restoration, and working with contractors to implement restoration plans. By explicitly considering the mechanisms and strategies that maximize the success of the restoration of contaminated sites, we hope that our synthesis serves to increase and improve collaborations between restoration ecologists and ecotoxicologists and set a roadmap for the restoration of contaminated ecosystems.

Solving environmental problems in the Anthropocene: the need to bring novel theoretical advances into the applied ecology fold

“…), local scale remediation of chemical contamination and restoration (Rohr et al . ) to global scale rewilding (Svenning et al . ).…”

“…Applied ecology aims to use ecological knowledge to improve the state of biodiversity and the services ecosystems deliver. Potential interventions range from designing and prioritizing landscape protection (Oliver et al 2012), ensuring the delivery of food production and other services (Carvalheiro et al 2012), local scale remediation of chemical contamination and restoration (Rohr et al 2016) to global scale rewilding (Svenning et al 2016). Applied ecology indeed provides evidence and tools that can inform management and policy across spatial scales, can lead to new developments in our fundamental understanding of the natural world, and is at the forefront of using ecological knowledge to develop and implement strategies.…”

Do or do not. There is no try in restoration ecology

“…Human development and restoration often occur hand‐in‐hand in California, sometimes at equal rates and spatially adjacent, and a redefinition of local varieties through project‐based integration was proposed as a clever transition mechanism for communities—that is what we lose here, we can consider regaining here through active (mitigation) not passive restoration strategies. Finally, and not surprisingly given the incredible direct anthropogenic pressures that many ecosystems in California endure, local species were also defined as those that serve local human needs associated with key ecosystem services (Wong et al ; Rohr et al ). Pragmatism prevailed over theory.…”

The pros and cons of ecological risk assessment based on data from different levels of biological organization

“…If done well, it can prevent damage to ecosystems and the need for costly ecosystem restoration (Rohr et al 2016, Rohr, Johnson, et al 2013). Although generally applicable to any type of potential (anthropogenic) stressor, ecological risk assessment is central to the use and regulation of manufactured chemicals, including pesticides and industrial compounds.…”