Time and space catch up with restoration programs that ignore ecosystem service trade-offs

In response to extreme societal consequences of ecosystem degradation and climate change, attention to ecological restoration is increasing globally. In China, investments in restoration exceeded USD 378.5 billion over the past decade. However, restoration programs are experiments that can cause mar...

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Autores principales: Li, Ruonan, Zheng, Hua, O’Connor, Patrick, Xu, Huashan, Li, Yunkai, Lu, Fei, Robinson, Brian E., Ouyang, Zhiyun, Hai, Yue, Daily, Gretchen C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8011961/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33789907
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf8650
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author Li, Ruonan
Zheng, Hua
O’Connor, Patrick
Xu, Huashan
Li, Yunkai
Lu, Fei
Robinson, Brian E.
Ouyang, Zhiyun
Hai, Yue
Daily, Gretchen C.
author_facet Li, Ruonan
Zheng, Hua
O’Connor, Patrick
Xu, Huashan
Li, Yunkai
Lu, Fei
Robinson, Brian E.
Ouyang, Zhiyun
Hai, Yue
Daily, Gretchen C.
author_sort Li, Ruonan
collection PubMed
description In response to extreme societal consequences of ecosystem degradation and climate change, attention to ecological restoration is increasing globally. In China, investments in restoration exceeded USD 378.5 billion over the past decade. However, restoration programs are experiments that can cause marked unintended consequences, with trade-offs across space and time that have undergone little empirical examination. We quantified the long-term effects of large-scale afforestation for soil erosion and sandstorm prevention in semiarid China. We found that soil erosion was notably reduced by afforestation but surface runoff declined significantly, after a time lag of 18 years, limiting overall benefit. While forest area also increased, forest quality declined, interacting with reduced surface water runoff. Crucially, increased forest water consumption accelerated downstream groundwater depletion, thus intensifying conflicts over water use. The time lags and spatial trade-offs revealed by this case study provide critical lessons for large-scale restoration programs globally.
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spelling pubmed-80119612021-04-13 Time and space catch up with restoration programs that ignore ecosystem service trade-offs Li, Ruonan Zheng, Hua O’Connor, Patrick Xu, Huashan Li, Yunkai Lu, Fei Robinson, Brian E. Ouyang, Zhiyun Hai, Yue Daily, Gretchen C. Sci Adv Research Articles In response to extreme societal consequences of ecosystem degradation and climate change, attention to ecological restoration is increasing globally. In China, investments in restoration exceeded USD 378.5 billion over the past decade. However, restoration programs are experiments that can cause marked unintended consequences, with trade-offs across space and time that have undergone little empirical examination. We quantified the long-term effects of large-scale afforestation for soil erosion and sandstorm prevention in semiarid China. We found that soil erosion was notably reduced by afforestation but surface runoff declined significantly, after a time lag of 18 years, limiting overall benefit. While forest area also increased, forest quality declined, interacting with reduced surface water runoff. Crucially, increased forest water consumption accelerated downstream groundwater depletion, thus intensifying conflicts over water use. The time lags and spatial trade-offs revealed by this case study provide critical lessons for large-scale restoration programs globally. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2021-03-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8011961/ /pubmed/33789907 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf8650 Text en Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Li, Ruonan
Zheng, Hua
O’Connor, Patrick
Xu, Huashan
Li, Yunkai
Lu, Fei
Robinson, Brian E.
Ouyang, Zhiyun
Hai, Yue
Daily, Gretchen C.
Time and space catch up with restoration programs that ignore ecosystem service trade-offs
title Time and space catch up with restoration programs that ignore ecosystem service trade-offs
title_full Time and space catch up with restoration programs that ignore ecosystem service trade-offs
title_fullStr Time and space catch up with restoration programs that ignore ecosystem service trade-offs
title_full_unstemmed Time and space catch up with restoration programs that ignore ecosystem service trade-offs
title_short Time and space catch up with restoration programs that ignore ecosystem service trade-offs
title_sort time and space catch up with restoration programs that ignore ecosystem service trade-offs
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8011961/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33789907
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf8650
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