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Environmental Restoration
Environmental restoration is closely allied with (or perhaps sometimes used interchangeably with) ecological restoration or environmental remediation. In the U.S., remediation is the term used more in the realms of industry, public policy, and civil services. Environmental restoration is a term common in the citizens’ environmental movement. In the 1987 edition of his book ''Restoring the Earth: How Americans are Working to Renew our Damaged Environment'', scientific editor and writer John J. Berger defined environmental restoration (or “natural resource restoration”) as follows: ''"… A process in which a damaged resource is renewed. Biologically. Structurally. Functionally."'' Natural environment The ongoing growth of the human population in the world and its associated impacts, mean that the need for ecological restoration has become increasingly clear. The old adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" points to the fact that ecological restoration ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecological Restoration
Restoration ecology is the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration, which is the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human interruption and action. Effective restoration requires an explicit goal or policy, preferably an unambiguous one that is articulated, accepted, and codified. Restoration goals reflect societal choices from among competing policy priorities, but extracting such goals is typically contentious and politically challenging. Natural ecosystems provide ecosystem services in the form of resources such as food, fuel, and timber; the purification of air and water; the detoxification and decomposition of wastes; the regulation of climate; the regeneration of soil fertility; and the pollination of crops. These ecosystem processes have been estimated to be worth trillions of dollars annually. There is consensus in the scientific community that the current env ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maitai River
The Maitai River (also known as the Mahitahi River) is the largest river in the city of Nelson, in the north of New Zealand's South Island. The river stretches from the Bryant Range, situated to the east (inland) of Nelson, where it flows towards the city, flowing west through the heart of the city and into the Tasman bay at Nelson Haven. The catchment of the river covers some 9000 hectares, and has two branches in the upper catchment, the north meets a dam, where the south travels west into the middle catchment, from where it takes its final journey through the urban area of the city before meeting the ocean. The Maitai river provides habitats for a plethora of diverse wildlife, at all catchments of the river and its surrounding ecosystems. This sees that many species of bird, fish, mammals and reptiles use the river as both a home and a source of food and drinking water, as well as for extensive amounts of vegetation to grow around the abundant water-source. There has also bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Nature
Industrial Nature is the regeneration of natural vegetation on industrial sites; the invasion of abandoned or disused industrial sites by colonising species; or new plantings on abandoned, disused or remediated industrial sites. The underlying principal is that the historical industrial use of landscapes or sites creates a new environment which species can use either by design as in the case of a park or revegetated area, or by colonisation. The concept has its origins in Germany, specifically at the Emscher Landscape Park in the Ruhr, (of which the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord is the best known example) and has been applied at the Sudgelande Park in Berlin. Another example can be found at the Deutsches Technikmuseum German Museum of Technology (Berlin), at the former locomotive workshops and goods yard (Anhalter Güterbahnhof) of Berlin-Anhalt Railway Company. Here much of the goods yards and part of the roundhouse complex has been left as a ruin, colonised by a variety of non-na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dutch Standards
Dutch Standards are environmental pollutant reference values (i.e., concentrations in environmental medium) used in environmental remediation, investigation and cleanup. Barring a few exceptions, the target values are underpinned by an environmental risk analysis wherever possible and apply to individual substances. In most cases, target values for the various substances are related to a national background concentration that was determined for the Netherlands. Groundwater target values provide an indication of the benchmark for environmental quality in the long term, assuming that there are negligible risks for the ecosystem. For metals a distinction is made between deep and shallow groundwater. This is because deep and shallow groundwater contain different background concentrations. An arbitrary limit of 10 metres has been adopted. The target values shown below are for 'shallow' groundwater, 0 – 10 m depth. The soil remediation intervention values indicate when the functiona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buffalo Commons
The Buffalo Commons is a conceptual proposal to create a vast nature preserve by returning of the drier portion of the Great Plains to native prairie, and by reintroducing the American bison ("buffalo"), that once grazed the shortgrass prairie. The proposal would affect ten states: Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. History The proposal originated with Frank J. Popper and Deborah Popper, who argued in a 1987 essay that the current use of the drier parts of the plains is not sustainable. The authors viewed the historic European-American settlement of the Plains States as hampered by lack of understanding of the ecology and an example of the "Tragedy of the Commons". Many people in potentially affected states resisted the concept during the 1990s. Cause The Poppers note that periodic disasters such as the Dust Bowl and continuing significant population loss over the last 80 years show the area is not sust ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bioremediation
Bioremediation broadly refers to any process wherein a biological system (typically bacteria, microalgae, fungi, and plants), living or dead, is employed for removing environmental pollutants from air, water, soil, flue gasses, industrial effluents etc., in natural or artificial settings. The natural ability of organisms to adsorb, accumulate, and degrade common and emerging pollutants has attracted the use of biological resources in treatment of contaminated environment. In comparison to conventional physicochemical treatment methods bioremediation may offer considerable advantages as it aims to be sustainable, eco-friendly, cheap, and scalable. Most bioremediation is inadvertent, involving native organisms. Research on bioremediation is heavily focused on stimulating the process by inoculation of a polluted site with organisms or supplying nutrients to promote the growth. In principle, bioremediation could be used to reduce the impact of byproducts created from anthropogenic acti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biodegradation
Biodegradation is the breakdown of organic matter by microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi. It is generally assumed to be a natural process, which differentiates it from composting. Composting is a human-driven process in which biodegradation occurs under a specific set of circumstances. The process of biodegradation is threefold: first an object undergoes biodeterioration, which is the mechanical weakening of its structure; then follows biofragmentation, which is the breakdown of materials by microorganisms; and finally assimilation, which is the incorporation of the old material into new cells. In practice, almost all chemical compounds and materials are subject to biodegradation, the key element being time. Things like vegetables may degrade within days, while glass and some plastics take many millennia to decompose. A standard for biodegradability used by the European Union is that greater than 90% of the original material must be converted into , water and minerals b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Department Of The Navy
The United States Department of the Navy (DoN) is one of the three military departments within the Department of Defense of the United States of America. It was established by an Act of Congress on 30 April 1798, at the urging of Secretary of War James McHenry, to provide a government organizational structure to the United States Navy (USN);Bernard C. Steiner and James McHenry, The life and correspondence of James McHenry' (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers Co., 1907). since 1834, it has exercised jurisdiction over the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) and, during wartime, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), though each remains an independent service branch. It is led by the Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV), a statutory civilian officer. The Department of the Navy was an executive department, whose secretary served on the president's cabinet, until 1949, when amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 established the Department of Defense as a unified department for all military services; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, And Liability Act
Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The program is designed to investigate and clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances. Sites managed under this program are referred to as "Superfund" sites. There are 40,000 federal Superfund sites across the country, and approximately 1,300 of those sites have been listed on the National Priorities List (NPL). Sites on the NPL are considered the most highly contaminated and undergo longer-term remedial investigation and remedial action (cleanups). The EPA seeks to identify parties responsible for hazardous substances released to the environment (polluters) and either compel them to clean up the sites, or it may undertake the cleanup on its own using the Superfund (a trust fund) and seek to recover those costs from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surface Mining Control And Reclamation Act Of 1977
The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) is the primary federal law that regulates the environmental effects of coal mining in the United States. SMCRA created two programs: one for regulating active coal mines and a second for reclaiming abandoned mine lands. SMCRA also created the Office of Surface Mining, an agency within the Department of the Interior, to promulgate regulations, to fund state regulatory and reclamation efforts, and to ensure consistency among state regulatory programs. Passage SMCRA grew out of a concern about the environmental effects of strip mining. Coal had been mined in the United States since the 1740s, but surface mining did not become widespread until the 1930s. At the end of that decade, states began to enact the first laws regulating the coal mining industry: West Virginia in 1939, Indiana in 1941, Illinois in 1943, and Pennsylvania in 1945. Despite those laws, the great demand for coal during World War II led to coal bei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endangered Species Act Of 1973
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation", the ESA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973. The Supreme Court of the United States described it as "the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species enacted by any nation"."Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill" 437 U.S. 153 (1978) Retrieved 24 November 2015. The purposes of the ESA are two-fold: to prevent extinction and to recover species to the point where the law's protections are not needed. It therefo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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