Creating and Restoring Wetlands: From Theory to Practice - Hardcover

Creating and Restoring Wetlands: From Theory to Practice describes the challenges and opportunities relating to the restoration of freshwater and estuarine wetlands in natural, agricultural, and urban environments in the coming century.

The underpinnings of restoration, driven by ecological (disturbance, dispersal, succession) theory, are described and applied to various activities (restoring hydrology, soils, and biota) that are used to improve the short- and long-term success of wetland restoration projects.

Unforeseen problems that hinder restoration efforts and solutions to these problems are discussed in this comprehensive book that contains five sections and 13 chapters that include an introduction describing the defining characteristics of wetland – hydrology, soils, biota, the role of theory in guiding wetland succession, ecosystem development following restoration, and differentiating wetland reclamation, restoration, and creation, restoration of various estuarine and freshwater wetlands, case studies of estuarine and freshwater restoration and large-scale restoration, and finally, the future of wetland restoration.

• Explicitly links ecological theory to restoration efforts in a variety of freshwater and estuarine, natural, agricultural, urban landscapes, and wetland ecosystems
• Contains case studies of small- and large-scale restoration activities ensuring relevance to individuals and organizations
• Illustrates successes as well as failures of freshwater and estuarine wetland restorations in order to learn from them
• Presents specific information on hydrology, biota, wetland succession, ecosystem development following restoration, and more

Christopher Craft is the Duey-Murphy Professor of Rural Land Policy, Indiana University, where he teaches courses in Environmental Science, Applied Ecology, Wetlands Ecology and Restoration Ecology. His introduction to wetland science began in 1983 when, as a new Ph.D. student, he began studying the ecosystem development of tidal marshes that had been created and restored along the North Carolina coast in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Since that time, Chris worked on restoration projects in freshwater wetlands of the Florida Everglades, Upper Klamath Lake (Oregon) and the agricultural Midwest and in estuarine wetlands of the southeast (Sapelo Island GA), New England and New York-New Jersey harbour. Professor Craft served as President of the Society of Wetland Scientists from 2008-2009. In 2012, he received the National Wetlands Award for Science Research, given annually by the Environmental Law Institute and six U.S. governmental agencies. His research interests extend to the effects of eutrophication and climate change and his work carries to Europe, China and South America.