EcologicalEngineering18(2001)115–120
/locate/ecoleng
Shortcommunication
Wetlandcreationforrarewaterfowlconservation:Aprojectdesignedaccordingtotheprinciplesofecologicalsuccession
WanShuwena,1,QinPeia,*,LiYanga,LiuXi-Pingb
a
DepartmentofBiology,NanjingUni6ersity,Nanjing210093,People’sRepublicofChina
b
YanchengBiosphereReser6e,Yancheng224001,People’sRepublicofChina
Received20June2000;receivedinrevisedform29December2000;accepted2January2001
Abstract
Thepracticesofwetlandcreationandrestorationformitigatingwetlandlosshavebeenfrequentlycarriedoutthroughouttheworld;however,manyoftheseprojectsdonotworkwell.Inthispaper,theauthorsanalyzewetlandcreationfromtheaspectofwhole-ecosystemdevelopment,andexplaintheextremedif cultyofhumandesigninwetlandcreationbythetheoriesofecologicalsuccession.Morespaceshouldbegiventoself-designthanhumandesigninwetlandcreation,andtheprinciplesofecologicalsuccessionenableustobetterusethegreatdesignabilityofnatureinjustthewaywewish.AwetlandcreationprojectforrarewaterfowlconservationinChinaYanchengBiosphereReservewaschosenasademonstration,designedtotallyaccordingtotheprinciplesofecologicalsuccessionandallowedtoself-designfreeofinterferencefromhumanactivities.A240hareedwetlandwascreatedfromthelalanggrasslandafter4yearsofself-design.Successwasprovedbyitsplantcompositionandagoodhabitatvalueformanymorebirdsthaninthesamearea4yearsbefore.©2001ElsevierScienceB.V.Allrightsreserved.
Keywords:Wetland;Wetlandcreation;Naturalconservation;YanchengBiosphereReserve
1.Introduction
Thepracticesofwetlandcreationandrestora-tiontoreplacewetlandslostordestroyedelse-where,aprocessknownaswetlandmitigation,arecarriedoutfrequentlyintheworld(Mitschetal.,
*Correspondingauthor.
E-mailaddress:qinpeinc@(Q.Pei).1
Presentaddress:SchoolofNaturalResources,TheOhioStateUniversity,Columbus,OH43210,USA.
1998).Disappointingly,manymitigationprojects,thevastmajorityofwhichhavebeenattemptedinwetlands,donotwork,oratleastdonotworkwell(Roberts,1993;Malakoff,1998).Anattempttocreatea12hasaltmarshinSouthernCalifor-nia(Zedler,1996)wasrecentlydeclaredafailurebecauseitdidnotprovidehabitatforlight-footedclapperrail(Malakoff,1998).InOregon,onestudyfoundnearlyallwetlandprojectsarefunda-mentallydifferentfromthewetlandstheyareintendedtoreplace(Kentulaetal.,1992).What
0925-8574/01/$-seefrontmatter©2001ElsevierScienceB.V.Allrightsreserved.PII:S0925-8574(01)00062-3
