Priortizing restoration across agricultural landscapes

In highly fragmented and degraded landscapes, habitat conservation often requires large-scale ecosystem restoration. Yet, in agricultural areas comprised of a large number of privately owned properties, individual restoration projects are often implemented without a systematic approach to coordinate and prioritize efforts.

To address this issue, Bill Thompson from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources presents a planning method for prioritizing ecosystem restoration efforts across an agricultural region. The methodology borrows from the conservation planning literature on prioritizing land protection.

Specifically the approach uses the concept of "irreplaceability" to score properties based on their relative importance in meeting restoration targets for a given watershed (or other type of planning unit). While this type of systematic approach to prioritization has been widely used in land protection, it is much less common in restoration.

In an article in the journal Restoration Ecology, Thompson presents a case study conducting this restoration planning approach in Elgin County in Southwestern Ontario.

A key part of the approach is quantifying restoration targets based on our understanding of the relationship between landscape structure and ecological processes.

For example, locally relevant studies have shown that losses of wetland area below 10% of a given watershed lead to exponential increases in the volume of peak floods and declines in fish communities. So wetland restoration targets for each watershed were set at 10% of the total area.

After using GIS to map out the current conditions, a simple algorithm was used to measure the irreplaceabilty of properties based on the extent to which their exclusion would negatively affect the ability to meet restoration targets.

The process was highly participatory and included local landowners as part of the steering committee to develop the restoration targets and map out the current conditions. Thompson writes,

"The empowering and consultative approach exercised during the current study did significantly assist with implementing habitat restoration projects. During the 4-year period this landscape plan was being developed, field-tested, and rolled out, uptake of site level restoration projects on an annual basis increased more than 20-fold."

--by Rob Goldstein

Thompson, B. (2010). Planning for Implementation: Landscape-Level Restoration Planning in an Agricultural Setting Restoration Ecology DOI: 10.1111/j.1526-100X.2010.00666.x