This book assesses the strengths and weaknesses of current environmental research programs, describes the desirable characteristics of an effective program, and recommends cultural and organizational changes to improve the performance of environmental research. Research areas in need of greater emphasis are identified, and overall directions for environmental research are recommended. The book also comments on the proposal to establish a National Institute for the Environment and on the elevation of the Environmental Protection Agency to cabinet status.

Decision Consequence Analysis (DCA) is a framework for improving the quality of decision results. The framework is a systematic, multi-criteria quantification of uncertainties and the opportunities for managing and reducing the potential negative consequences of such uncertainties. DCA is demonstrated throughout Sustainable Land Development and Restoration for each stage of system based management of environmental issues. DCA links disciplines and incorporates components of risk modelling, probability modelling and the psychology of decision making. Its goal is to provide a comprehensive unbiased decision making framework. Its foundation is accurately defining your problem statement and clearly vetting your objectives to build a structure for meaningful analysis of data. Employment of DCA consistently throughout the environmental industry can reduce decibel-driven, agenda-laden decision making, streamline expenditure of resources (financial, human, natural), and provide a clear path to the sustainable maintenance of balanced environmental systems as the penultimate objective. Sustainable Land Development and Restoration provides a toolbox to both the novice and experienced environmental practitioner of valuable techniques for addressing site specific environmental issues, as well as managing a portfolio of liabilities on an international scale. Ultimately, the authors are addressing the critical issue of balancing environmental asset balance sheets, whether on the scale of an individual project, across a company's portfolio, or for a community. The environmental manager who adopts the principles in this book will have greater confidence that environmental protection or restoration activities are providing measurable utility. The goal is that, through multidimensional resource management analysis and practices companies and societies can achieve sustainable maintenance of a balanced environmental system. Descriptions of technical, contracting and implementation processes are supported by detailed case studies to provide real world context rather than an academic exchange of theories. Techniques for addressing site specific environmental issues Multidimensional resource management analysis Case narrative, data base, and GIS linked

This report presents the case for why we all must throw our weight behind a global restoration effort. Drawing on the latest scientific evidence, it explains the crucial role played by ecosystems from forests and farmland to rivers and oceans, and charts the losses that result from our poor stewardship of the planet. While restoration science is a youthful discipline, we already have the knowledge and tools we need to halt degradation and restore ecosystems. Farmers, for instance, can draw on proven restorative practices such as sustainable farming and agroforestry. Landscape approaches that give all stakeholders - including women and minorities - a say in decision-making are simultaneously supporting social and economic development and ecosystem health. And policy makers and financial institutions are realizing the huge need and potential for green investment.

Aldo Leopold, father of the "land ethic," once said, "The time has come for science to busy itself with the earth itself. The first step is to reconstruct a sample of what we had to begin with." The concept he expressedâ€"restorationâ€"is defined in this comprehensive new volume that examines the prospects for repairing the damage society has done to the nation's aquatic resources: lakes, rivers and streams, and wetlands. Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems outlines a national strategy for aquatic restoration, with practical recommendations, and features case studies of aquatic restoration activities around the country. The committee examines: Key concepts and techniques used in restoration. Common factors in successful restoration efforts. Threats to the health of the nation's aquatic ecosystems. Approaches to evaluation before, during, and after a restoration project. The emerging specialties of restoration and landscape ecology.

Human activities are depleting ecosystems at an unprecedented rate. In spite of nature conservation efforts worldwide, many ecosystems including those critical for human well-being have been damaged or destroyed. States and citizens need a new vision of how humans can reconnect with the natural environment. With its focus on the long-term holistic recovery of ecosystems, ecological restoration has received increasing attention in the past decade from both scientists and policymakers. Research on the implications of ecological restoration for the law and law for ecological restoration has been largely overlooked. This is the first published book to examine comprehensively the relationship between international environmental law and ecological restoration. While international environmental law (IEL) has developed significantly as a discipline over the past four decades, this book enquires whether IEL can now assist states in making a strategic transition from not just protecting and maintaining the natural environment but also actively restoring it. Arguing that states have international duties to restore, this book offers reflections on the philosophical context of ecological restoration and the legal content of a duty to restore from an international law, European Union law and national law perspective. The book concludes with a discussion of several contemporary themes of interest to both lawyers and ecologists including the role of private actors, protected areas and climate change in ecological restoration.

Examining the science of stream restoration, Rebecca Lave argues that the neoliberal emphasis on the privatization and commercialization of knowledge has fundamentally changed the way that science is funded, organized, and viewed in the United States. Stream restoration science and practice is in a startling state. The most widely respected expert in the field, Dave Rosgen, is a private consultant with relatively little formal scientific training. Since the mid-1990s, many academic and federal agency-based scientists have denounced Rosgen as a charlatan and a hack. Despite this, Rosgen's Natural Channel Design approach, classification system, and short-course series are not only accepted but are viewed as more legitimate than academically produced knowledge and training. Rosgen's methods are now promoted by federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, as well as by resource agencies in dozens of states. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Lave demonstrates that the primary cause of Rosgen's success is neither the method nor the man but is instead the assignment of a new legitimacy to scientific claims developed outside the academy, concurrent with academic scientists' decreasing ability to defend their turf. What is at stake in the Rosgen wars, argues Lave, is not just the ecological health of our rivers and streams but the very future of environmental science.

The pace, intensity, and scale at which humans have altered our planet in recent decades is unprecedented. We have dramatically transformed landscapes and waterways through agriculture, logging, mining, and fire suppression, with drastic impacts on public health and human well-being. What can we do to counteract and even reverse the worst of these effects? Restore damaged ecosystems. The Primer of Ecological Restoration is a succinct introduction to the theory and practice of ecological restoration as a strategy to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems. In twelve brief chapters, the book introduces readers to the basics of restoration project planning, monitoring, and adaptive management. It explains abiotic factors such as landforms, soil, and hydrology that are the building blocks to successfully recovering microorganism, plant, and animal communities. Additional chapters cover topics such as invasive species and legal and financial considerations. Each chapter concludes with recommended reading and reference lists, and the book can be paired with online resources for teaching. Perfect for introductory classes in ecological restoration or for practitioners seeking constructive guidance for real-world projects, Primer of Ecological Restoration offers accessible, practical information on recent trends in the field.

This volume is comprised of contributions to the 67th Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, which brought together various research disciplines such as psychology, education, health sciences, natural resources, environmental studies to investigate the ways in which nature influences cognition, health, human behavior, and well-being. The symposium is positioned to explore two proposed mechanisms in the most depth: 1) the psycho-evolutionary theory of stress recovery and 2) Attention Restoration Theory. The contributions in the volume represent research guided by both of these posited mechanisms, rigorously examine these theories and processes, and share methodological innovations that can be utilized across programs of research. This volume will be of great interest to researchers on natural environments, practitioners and clinicians working with an environmental lens at the intersection of psychology, social work, education and the health sciences, as well as researchers and students in environmental and conservation psychology. Chapter 5 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.