Reclamation and Restoration of Disturbed Systems

Abstract Many different types of human activities can lead to disturbances that impair ecosystems and their functions, as covered in Chapters 14–17, and 25 14 15 16 17 25 . Major impacts include degraded soil quality, water and air pollution, scenic impairment, and habitat destruction. These disturbances occur over a vast range of scales, from a single site such as a manufacturing plant, mine, or agricultural field, to watershed systems, to entire regions (such as deforestation of the Amazon rainforest). Different approaches are used to address these different scales of problems. This chapter will focus primarily on disturbances associated with single sites, or what may be referred to as local-scale disturbances. Methods for dealing with regional and global-scale issues are discussed in Chapter 32 .