This is great news. I'm deeply ashamed for the government of my country for opposing it, but super relieved that it passed! Thank you Austrian campaigners! Even though it got substantially weakened during the negotiation process:( I doubt it's enough to combat biodiversity loss in Europe, but it's a big and direly needed step.
True, but rough mounding is a legit strategy for retaining water and creating microsites for plants in non-desert climates. Here, it needs a bit more help to get established. I suspect once it reaches a certain threshold, water inputs would be reduced.
Not everything is irrigated. They showed areas that are only fed by rainwater.
I think the point is that the soil was swept away and the ground is impermeable so any rainwater flows into the river or evaporates rather than supporting plant life or replenishing the groundwater.
Trees provide innumerable benefits to the world, from food to shelter to oxygen, but researchers have now found their dramatic rebound in the eastern US has delivered a further, stunning feat – the curtailing of the soaring temperatures caused by the climate crisis.
The recovery of the US’s eastern forests has blunted global heating mainly through the trees’ transpiration, in which water is drawn up through the roots to the leaves and then released into the air as vapor, slightly cooling the surrounding area.
By poring over data from satellites and weather stations located across the eastern US from 1900 to 2000, Barnes and her colleagues found reforested areas have provided this cooling impact on a grand scale, with most of this effect occurring within 400 meters of the trees.
“Moving forward, we need to think about tree planting not just as a way to absorb carbon dioxide but also the cooling effects in adapting for climate change, to help cities be resilient against these very hot temperatures.”
Patrick Gonzalez, a University of California, Berkeley, climate change scientist and forest ecologist who wasn’t involved in the new study, said the work provides “strong support” to the theory of cooling trees.
“Cutting carbon pollution from cars, power plants and other human sources that burn coal, oil and methane remains the essential solution to halt climate change,” he said.
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It makes sense. There's several different equilibria that any ecological niche could move towards. Getting rid of apex predators tipped this one past an inflection point. Without willows and alders, beavers don't have enough food, so the streams cut deep enough that the floodplains shrunk considerably, so beavers still end up with less food even without browsing competition. Alders and willows will likely start choking up the streams and causing the floodplains the grow, and eventually recover, but not as quickly as if all those beaver dams were still there.
You need apex predators and keystone species. I wonder how much area you'd have to fence off to keep enough forage for beavers, because that might be enough to cause a cascade of restoration
I totally get being busy and not able to post much. This was a very interesting post though, I dont know much about reclamation and this was really informative.
Ill try and make a post about the use of fungus in turning toxic soil healthy later. Theres a place in my state that does research on cleaning up industrial sites for farming, i think that would fit this sub :)
It doesn't have to be specific to industrial sites, mine sites, well sites, etc. It can just be some sort of land restoration, or restoration effort to apply. Any sort of content related to improving the environment is welcome!
I'm not disparaging the project in any way but for us, when we come back to a site, usually we get excited about how much they've grown etc.
When you come back to a site after 10 years and they are 80cm high (not 20m high like here), are you excited about survival rates or does 70cm in 10 years get you hooting and hollering?
Loving the rock (structural soil) mounds. I'm interested in the answer to the other comment, why mounds like that.
This area, as I mentioned, is high elevation in the Rockies; close to the tree line. They get maybe a 5 month growing season at best (June to end of Sept). Undistrubed soils are thin (30 cm profiles tops) and rocky.
In comparison, in good soils around here, I'd expect 10 year old trees to be 2-3 m tall; thus, given the challenging growing conditions and the complete lack of soil, I think this is pretty good. Should their reclamation prescription use not use soil? No. I say, if it's there, use it. However, mines are almost always short on material due to their inherent changes in topography (which creates more surface area to reclaim) so I think in areas you're short, this is viable and comparable, given that across the valley, on an undisturbed mountain the trees probably look similar at the same age.
why mound like that
Rough mounding is used for three reasons:
Slow water movement, and reduce erosion
improve water retention on the slope for the plants
Create a divers micro-topography that results in more microsites for a wide variety of plants to grow. Some do good on the tops of hummocks, while the the more shade and thirstier spp. do well in the hollows.
Been loving this channel for a while. Coolest video is them flooding a forest and showing fish swimming underwater, but above a forest floor. Real trippy.
How high? Previous forest cover? The mounds look suspiciously like it. The pinus spec. In front is likely around five to six years old, judging by its twigs. How high is the herbivorous population? This is extremely unspecific.
Trees are about 80 cm to 150 cm in height. Elevation is somewhere close to 2000 MASL. Upper portions of the site are about 2250 MASL.
Mounds look suspiciously like it
Yes, the area was forested, cleared, mined, and then they recreated the area by recontouring the landscape to about 26°, and then rough mounded (created the mounds you see) using equipment and planting into it.
Herbivorous population
While I get what you're getting at, as in they can decimate early rec, I don't think it's a factor here.
Why don’t you think that big game plays a role here?
Why recreate the mounds? The literature I’ve read concerning reforestation claims that the mounds of previous trees are beneficial because of their stumps degrading on top and better water retention trough the root system. This information might be old though.
improve water retention on the slope for the plants
Create a divers micro-topography that results in more microsites for a wide variety of plants to grow. Some do good on the tops of hummocks, while the the more shade and thirstier spp. do well in the hollows.
Big game
They certainly have a role, but I think there's a lot more preferential browsing sources for them in the surrounding areas, rather than this area. It's just recovering, and doesn't likely offer that great of a food source for them, when there are old growth forests near by.
That is interesting! Do you have any data concerning the effectiveness of this method and would you be willing to share it? I’d be interested to incorporate that into work.
As for big game, we found that especially young growths are a source of nutrition for red, roe and fallow deer, as well as several other species, all that f which tend to preferentially browse newly established forests. Several forestry certific have incorporated proper game management in their national standards because of these experiences in Germany.
you can do rough mounding a couple ways; another way is to just have humps of topsoil, if you don't want to admix your soils, and it works pretty well. I've seen the results first hand.
preferentially browse
We've seen this too, over here; they'll come in and eff up our sites, but it didn't happen here, probably because it's kind of in the middle of the mine.
In Australia, we call them "leaky weirs" (check dams too) as beavers don't exist and they were popularised by Natural Sequence Farming and Peter Andrews with great effect. Don't let the name fool you, they aren't that leaky and are built similarly to this vid.
I don't know if I like the term beaver dam as it's a bit exclusionary but if it works for clicks and techniques for the northern hemisphere, that's cool.
I've just included some old videos, NSF has been around for a long time:
This is a strawman argument from my perspective. I concede that their definition and methods may differ drastically than what mine are. regardless here is why I feel this is just someone afraid of their own thought experiment.
We are destroying our ecosystems at alarming rates due to bringing new lands under agriculture, mining and urban sprawl. Every effort needs to be made if we want to avoid all the bad things that come ecosystem losses.
Almost all revgetation efforts I've heard of (and I have read of a LOT) does not use donar plants or transplants from other areas. Plants are either bought from a nursery or collected from local seed on site or in nearby areas. Seed genetics are typically considered.
Their understanding of ways ecosystems can be impacted from donar plants is accurate, but they're missing the boat when it comes to how revgetation is typically done.
Reclamation - restoring disturbed lands
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