Katherine M. Abbott, Allison H. Roy, Francis J. Magilligan, Keith H. Nislow, Rebecca M. Quiñones
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Incorporating climate change into conservation and restoration decisions is increasingly important for natural resource managers and restoration practitioners to effectively address the underlying drivers of ecosystem change. Small dam removal is an example of a restoration tool that may offer multiple socioeconomic and ecological benefits in streams, including promoting climate resilience. With the pace of dam removals increasing, practitioners and researchers are well-poised to incorporate climate change into future dam removal decisions. Therefore, we surveyed dam removal practitioners across 14 states in the eastern United States to understand current practices of small dam removals, factors driving restoration decisions, and how climate change knowledge is incorporated into these decisions. We also aimed to identify barriers to and opportunities for knowledge exchange between practitioners and researchers. Of the 100 respondents, most (79%) consider climate change in their dam removal decisions to some extent. Despite this, many reported a lack of clear, relevant, and accessible data linking small dam removal to climate resilience benefits. Dam removal practitioners also indicated that they most often rely on climate change information garnered from conversations with colleagues, rather than from scientific research products. These results suggest that the co-production of relevant, salient research questions and readily accessible and interpretable research products (e.g., technical summaries, open access articles) may encourage practitioners to incorporate climate change science more consistently and efficiently into dam removal decisions. These findings may also translate to other stream restoration efforts to inform knowledge exchange and improve restoration outcomes in a changing climate.
The post Incorporating climate change into restoration decisions: perspectives from dam removal practitioners first appeared on Ecology & Society.
期刊介绍:
Ecology and Society is an electronic, peer-reviewed, multi-disciplinary journal devoted to the rapid dissemination of current research. Manuscript submission, peer review, and publication are all handled on the Internet. Software developed for the journal automates all clerical steps during peer review, facilitates a double-blind peer review process, and allows authors and editors to follow the progress of peer review on the Internet. As articles are accepted, they are published in an "Issue in Progress." At four month intervals the Issue-in-Progress is declared a New Issue, and subscribers receive the Table of Contents of the issue via email. Our turn-around time (submission to publication) averages around 350 days.
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The journal seeks papers that are novel, integrative and written in a way that is accessible to a wide audience that includes an array of disciplines from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities concerned with the relationship between society and the life-supporting ecosystems on which human wellbeing ultimately depends.