Journal
ECOLOGICAL ENGINEERING
Volume 18, Issue 5, Pages 543-554Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/S0925-8574(02)00019-8
Keywords
aquatic vegetation; former river channels; hydroelectric scheme impact; long-term study; multivariate data analysis; restoration assessment; Rhone River; succession
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Bibliographical study of articles published in scientific journals over the last 10 years, and of books published over the last 20 years, reveals a clear increase in the number of publications dealing with ecological engineering, particularly on aquatic ecosystems, which today are becoming a major topic. The concept of ecological restoration must be clearly defined scientifically and include adequate pre- and post-restoration monitoring of various performance indicators, to allow for restoration, evaluation and increase its success. A restoration experiment was carried out in a former channel of the Rhone River according to a scientifically based decision framework. Long-term monitoring of aquatic vegetation (17 years of data) on two former channels (reference and restored ecosystem) clearly demonstrated human impacts on aquatic ecosystems. A channel exhibiting rapid terrestrialization and eutrophication processes after completion of a hydroelectric scheme construction was restored. In keeping with the hypothesis, the increase in groundwater supply led the restored ecosystem to return to a less advanced and self-sustainable successional stage, whereas vegetation monitoring in the reference channel did not show significant changes over this 17-year of period, supporting long-term studies to determine the effects of restoration on the biota. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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