Two aspects of salinity in arid land were investigated as part of the present dissertation: the first was the potential re-use of industrially generated brine for irrigating landscape plants, and the second was the ecological restoration of saline farmland. The following is a summary of the most important points. With water conservation efforts accelerating in arid environments, industrial wastewater is considered a candidate for re-use. We investigated the use of high EC (electrical conductivity) cooling-tower water to irrigate nine common landscape plants in an urban environment. Each plant (replicated in a block design) was irrigated according to water demand determined by the soil moisture deficit, with one of three water treatments: blowdown water (3.65 dS m⁻¹), well water (0.52 dS m⁻¹) and a 1:1 blend (2.09 dS m⁻¹). Results indicate the salinity of the irrigation water did not have a significant effect (P>0.05) on growth or water use but, soil salinities were higher in basins irrigated with blowdown water compared to those irrigated with well water. The overall feasibility of reusing industrial brines to irrigate urban landscapes is discussed in light of the results. Restoring abandoned arid farmland can be challenging because topographic, geomorphic and hydrologic features have been degraded and cannot support a diverse native plant community. Typical amelioration practices depend upon good quality water to restore the soil’s physiochemical properties, however the long-term availability of any water is rare. A mitigation banking project to return 432 hectares of farmland to an open-space designation involved the collaboration of scientists, landscape architects and engineers to achieve five main goals: water management, erosion control, decreasing soil salinity, and increasing species diversity and vegetation cover. Two strategies evolved in the planning process that work in tandem to achieve these goals: a water management system that redirects storm water and run-off to discrete areas of the site for subsurface storage as plant-available water, and the introduction of a diverse mix of native plants. Field trials tested the strategies and also investigated different soil surface treatments, seeding methods and irrigation regimes against the germination and establishment of a customized native seed mix. Results from vegetation data indicate a combination of soil ripping and imprinting leads to the highest germination and establishment rates and drip irrigation helped establish transplanted seedlings. The project was designed so the longterm outcome does not depend on continual inputs and maintenance.

Over the past century tree encroachment has occurred in North American subalpine meadows. Causes of tree establishment have been related to climate influences and exclusion of fire, but very few studies have looked at the consequence of tree encroachment on meadow vegetation. Within the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains, Waterton Lakes National Park and Castle Special Management Area, 14 meadows were randomly selected at wet and dry sites. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling showed that species composition changed during the transition of open meadow to forest for both wet and dry habitats. There were no significant differences in these two management areas in terms of conifer encroachment and the effects on meadow species. Results of this study show that conifer encroachment has increased over the last century with the consequences of loss in meadow species through a decrease in abundance, richness and diversity. Wet sites were significantly more sensitive to conifer encroachment than dry sites. The greatest inhibitory effects of trees on meadow vegetation within the ecotone occurred when trees were 54-72 years old for wet sites and 77-112 years old for dry sites. Ecological restoration of these meadows is important for ongoing habitat conservation, maintaining species and landscape diversity and ecosystem resilience.

The context in which we find ourselves at the beginning of the twenty-first century is one of acute environmental degradation. In this thesis, I examine how Christians may respond to the realities of degradation through ecological restoration, an environmental practice aimed at assisting the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded, damaged, or destroyed, and do so in ways that reflect the core belief in the redemptive purposes of God in Christ for creation. The intention, therefore, is to construct a theological framework for ethical responses to degradation through restoration. I begin by examining ecological restoration as a contested scientific and cultural practice, exploring the questions it raises on the nature of human life, the natural world, and moral action, and evaluating the role of history in shaping moral responses to degradation through restoration. To develop a theological framework for restoration, I engage the work of Christian ethicist Oliver O'Donovan, particularly his text on the foundations of Christian ethics: Resurrection and Moral Order. I ground this framework in his arguments for the resurrection (with its dual movements of restoration and transformation) as the starting point for moral action, for the work of the Holy Spirit who makes God’s redemption a reality that shapes moral action, and for love as the shape of moral action. I draw out the significance for restoration of his moral realist approach, examining the created order and articulating a theological anthropology, and I show how the resurrection of Christ provides a guide for restorative action that both affirms the created order and yet remains attentive and open to its, and our, transformation. Finally, through an examination of love as perceptive and responsive to the natural world, I articulate a vision for restorative action that is oriented toward upholding and preserving the value of the natural world, and attentively and creatively responding to it in ways that bring forth its value so that it may be seen for what it is: the beloved world that God has affirmed and redeemed in the resurrection and which awaits its fulfilment.

This dissertation develops a new distributed split-flow stormwater management strategy and compares its site design feasibility and construction cost to existing stormwater management methods. The purpose of the split-flow strategy is to manage stormwater by preserving predevelopment flows in terms of rate, quality, frequency, duration and volume. This strategy emulates the predevelopment hydrology: it retains and infiltrates additional runoff volume created by development by using bioretention and paired weirs as proportional flow splitters connected to small infiltration facilities distributed throughout a site. Results show that 1) the distributed split-flow stormwater management strategy can provide a higher level of environmental protection at comparable construction cost to existing detention-based methods, 2) split-flow systems are less expensive to construct than current truncated hydrograph-based bioretention and infiltration systems and 3) non-point source water pollution-reduction objectives, currently achieved with either detention with first flush or comparable bioretention and infiltration systems, could be achieved in a more cost-effective manner using distributed split-flow stormwater management strategy. / Ph. D.

This thesis examines the feasibility of fostering “sustainable foodscapes” in urban communities. A review of the literature on the topics of sustainability, resilience, sustainable food security, and healthy communities is used to determine to the definition of “sustainable foodscapes.” This thesis uses a framework of socio-ecological restoration to consider how communities might adopt sustainable foodscapes. A case study is conducted in the city of Waterloo, Ontario to test the criteria of sustainable foodscapes and explore some of the practical opportunities and barriers to developing sustainable foodscapes in an urban community. The methods for the case study include semi-structured interviews. Interview results indicate that a variety of sustainable foodscapes such as community gardening, individual gardening, and foraging are used in Waterloo already, and survey results suggest that various members of the community are open to the adoption of these foodscapes. The case study results reveal that diverse community members view sustainable foodscapes as an important contribution to community health, less for the purpose of ecological sustainability than for their usefulness as a way of promoting community interaction, social learning, and fostering a sense of place. Ways to conduct a socio-ecological restoration for sustainable foodscapes in Waterloo could include increasing areas for the purposes of foraging to occur in an ecologically benign manner, such as on marginal or private land; creating municipal policies and Official Plans that provide support for community gardens, and fostering more accepting attitudes towards sustainable foodscapes by providing increased opportunities for education and participation among community members.

This thesis examines the feasibility of fostering “sustainable foodscapes” in urban communities. A review of the literature on the topics of sustainability, resilience, sustainable food security, and healthy communities is used to determine to the definition of “sustainable foodscapes.” This thesis uses a framework of socio-ecological restoration to consider how communities might adopt sustainable foodscapes. A case study is conducted in the city of Waterloo, Ontario to test the criteria of sustainable foodscapes and explore some of the practical opportunities and barriers to developing sustainable foodscapes in an urban community. The methods for the case study include semi-structured interviews. Interview results indicate that a variety of sustainable foodscapes such as community gardening, individual gardening, and foraging are used in Waterloo already, and survey results suggest that various members of the community are open to the adoption of these foodscapes. The case study results reveal that diverse community members view sustainable foodscapes as an important contribution to community health, less for the purpose of ecological sustainability than for their usefulness as a way of promoting community interaction, social learning, and fostering a sense of place. Ways to conduct a socio-ecological restoration for sustainable foodscapes in Waterloo could include increasing areas for the purposes of foraging to occur in an ecologically benign manner, such as on marginal or private land; creating municipal policies and Official Plans that provide support for community gardens, and fostering more accepting attitudes towards sustainable foodscapes by providing increased opportunities for education and participation among community members.

Research for this study built on the experience of salmon restoration by exploring the lived experience of children ages eight to 12 who participated in an eight-month salmon restoration education program, the Salmonid Enhancement Program (SEP), through the Kamloops School District and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). The study used a qualitative multimodal phenomenological approach that is theoretically framed through deep ecology and systems theory to answer: What meanings and impacts do children experience when participating in restoration projects? Data was gathered through: children's reflections from the experience, observations from the field experience, researcher reflections, photographs, children's drawings, and six follow-up semi-structured interviews collected from five participating classes in the Kamloops School District. The research will support the Kamloops School District and participating teachers better understand the meaning and experiences of youth participating in Salmonid Enhancement Program in order to create more inclusive program design in the future.

Ecological restoration has been identified as an increasingly important tool in environmental policy circles, from reversing species loss to mitigating climate change. While there has been a steady rise in the number of research projects that have investigated social and ecological values that underpin ecological restoration, scholarship has predominantly been carried out at the theoretical level, to the detriment of engaging with real-world ecological restoration projects. This has resulted in generalised and speculative accounts of ecological restoration values. This thesis seeks to address this research gap through a critical analysis of the roles of aesthetic values in the creation and implementation of restoration policy, using three different case studies of ecological restoration at the landscape level in the United Kingdom. I employ interdisciplinary research methods, including semi-structured interviews, interpretive policy analyses, still photography, and sound recording techniques, to better understand the multi-sensorial qualities of ecological restoration. I trace the role of aesthetic value from the initial development of restoration policy through to the management of the post-restoration landscape, considering along the way how aesthetic values are negotiated amongst other types of social and ecological values, how aesthetic values are measured, articulated, and projected onto the landscape by restoration policy makers, and the ways in which aesthetic values are applied through design and management strategies across each site. Throughout the thesis, I engage with a number of current research themes within the ecological restoration literature that intersect with aesthetic value, such as the use of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ species in landscape restoration, and the procedure through which landscape reference models are selected. I also address hitherto unasked spatial questions of ecological restoration, including an examination of the aesthetic relationships between a restoration site and adjacent landscapes, and the application of spatial practices to regulate certain forms of post-restoration landscape utility. I demonstrate that aesthetic values play a multitude of different roles throughout the restoration process, and ultimately show that as aesthetic values are captured and put to use to different ends through policy, they are inherently bound up with competing ethical visions of society-nature relationships.

Submitted by Rodrigo Bernardes Freire null (rodrigobfreire@hotmail.com) on 2018-01-10T00:08:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PRIORIZAÇÃO DE ÁREAS PARA RESTAURAÇÃO ECOLÓGICA NA UGRHI 22 - PONTAL DO PARANAPANEMA, SÃO PAULO, BRASIL..pdf: 14384914 bytes, checksum: 32af02c1ae8e5e28e1490053a6884452 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Claudia Adriana Spindola null (claudia@fct.unesp.br) on 2018-01-10T11:59:45Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 freire_rb_me_prud.pdf: 14384914 bytes, checksum: 32af02c1ae8e5e28e1490053a6884452 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-01-10T11:59:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 freire_rb_me_prud.pdf: 14384914 bytes, checksum: 32af02c1ae8e5e28e1490053a6884452 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-02 / Este trabalho buscou identificar áreas para restauração ecológica dentro dos limites da UGRHI 22, localizada no Pontal do Paranapanema, na região oeste do Estado de São Paulo, Brasil. Essa região possui baixos índices de cobertura vegetal nativa, e, diante desse cenário que pode ocasionar desequilíbrio ambiental com prejuízo às atividades humanas e também devido às obrigações previstas em leis, faz-se necessário a definição de áreas nas quais as ações de restauração ecológica devem acontecer com prioridade. Para tanto, utilizou-se a metodologia de Combinação Linear Ponderada, em que as variáveis escolhidas são combinadas, atribuindo-se pesos para cada uma delas de forma a se obter o resultado final. Foram utilizados como fontes de informação e análise os dados de Fragilidade Natural à Erosão, Vulnerabilidade Natural dos Aquíferos à Poluição, Áreas de Preservação Permanente, Inventário Florestal, Conectividade do Estado de São Paulo, Unidades de Conservação e Áreas declaradas como prioritárias por outros instrumentos e definição dos pesos para as variáveis utilizadas foi feita a partir de uma matriz AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). Num primeiro momento, os dados foram combinados, gerando uma hierarquização em cinco classes, e partir dessa, foram destacadas as áreas com extensão superior a 5 hectares e que estivesse na classe de maior prioridade. Os resultados mostraram que há áreas prioritárias por toda extensão da UGRHI 22, com destaque para as APPs de forma geral e para as UPHs Baixo Paranapanema Margem Direita, Tributários do Rio Paraná e Santo Anastácio. Concluiu-se que os dados gerados representam adequadamente as áreas prioritárias na área da UGRHI e pela necessidade de implantação de projetos de restauração ecológica nos locais indicados. / This work aimed to identify areas for ecological restoration into the of UGRHI 22, located in Pontal do Paranapanema, in the western of the São Paulo State, Brazil. This region has low indices of native vegetation cover and, in face of this scenario that can cause environmental imbalance and affect human activities and also due to legal obligations, it is necessary to define areas in which ecological restorations actions must take place prioritarily. To achieve the results, the Weighted Linear Combination methodology was used, which means that the chosen variables are combined, and weights were assigned for each one of that. The definition of these weights was made by the application of and AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) matrix and the data used as sources of information and to the analysis in this work were: Natural Fragility to Erosion, Natural Pollution Aquifer Vulnerability, Permanent Protection Area, Forest Inventory, Connectivity from the São Paulo State, Conservation Units and Areas that were declared as priority by other instruments. At first, the data were combined in order to generate a five classes hierarchy map, and then, the areas within the highest priority class and with extension larger than 5 hectares were selected. The final results showed that are priority areas throughout the extension of the UGRHI 22, with emphasis on the Permanent Protected Areas and the UPHs Right Margin of Lower Paranapanema, Tributaries of Parana River and Santo Anastacio. It was concluded that the results properly represent the priority areas in the UGRHI and the need to implement restoration projects in these places.

Ecological restoration aims to augment and steer the composition and contribution of propagules for community regeneration in degraded environments. Three studies were conducted to elucidate the role of regeneration dynamics and dominant species on community assembly during tallgrass prairie restoration. In the first study, patterns in the abundance, richness, and diversity of seed and bud banks were quantified across an 11-year chronosequence of restored prairies and in prairie remnants to elucidate the degree to which the germinable seed bank, emerged seedlings, belowground buds, and emerged ramets were related to community regeneration. There were no directional patterns in the abundance, richness, or diversity of the germinable seed bank across the chronosequence. Emerged seedling abundance of sown species decreased during restoration, whereas richness and diversity of all emerged seedlings and non-sown emerged seedling species decreased across the chronosequence. Conversely, abundance and richness of belowground buds increased with restoration age and belowground bud diversity of sown species increased across the chronosequence. Numbers of emerged ramets also increased across the chronosequence and was driven primarily by the number of graminoid ramets. There were no temporal changes in abundance and richness of sown and non-sown emerged ramets, but diversity of sown emerged ramets increased across the chronosequence. This study demonstrates that after initial seeding, plant community structure in restored prairies increasingly reflects the composition of the bud bank. In the second study, abundance and richness of ramets, emerged seedlings, seed rain, and the soil seed bank were measured in a restoration experiment consisting of a split plot design with population source of dominant grasses (cultivar vs. local ecotype) and sown subordinate species (three unique pools of non-dominant species) as the subplot factor, respectively. Different sown species pools were included to assess whether any observed differences in propagule abundance or richness between the dominant species sources was generalizable across varying interspecific interactions. Abundance of emerged ramets was similar between communities sown with cultivar and local ecotypes of the dominant grasses but differed among sown species pools in prairie restored with cultivars but not local ecotypes. Number of emerged seedlings also differed among species pools, but only in communities sown with local ecotypes of the dominant grasses. There was also higher seedling emergence in communities sown with local ecotypes relative to cultivars of the dominant grasses in one species pool. Richness of the seed rain was influenced by an interaction between dominant grass population source and sown species pool, resulting from (1) higher richness in prairie restored with local ecotypes than cultivars of the native grasses in one species pool and (2) differences in richness among species pools that occurred only in prairie restored with the local ecotype grass source. Abundance and richness of the seed bank was not affected dominant grass population source. This study addressed a poorly understood potential effect of using cultivars in ecological restoration, specifically on the abundance and supply of propagules for community assembly. These results suggest that if both local ecotype and cultivar sources are available for restoration, using local ecotypes could result in more seedling germination and richness in the seed rain. One of the central concepts of ecology is to understand the processes that influence species diversity, and how the resulting diversity affects ecosystem functioning. Diversity has been hypothesized to be responsible for long-term community stability, contrasted by the idea that dominant species regulate temporal stability (mass ratio hypothesis). In the third study, community metrics (total plant cover, forb cover, C4 grass cover, richness, and diversity) were measured in a restoration experiment consisting of a split plot design with sown dominant grasses (Andropogon gerardii, Schizachyrium scoparium, and Sorghastrum nutans) and subordinate species (three unique pools of non-dominant species) as the subplot factor, with treatment (control vs. suppression of dominant grasses) as the sub-subplot factor, respectively. Dominant grass suppression had little effect on forb cover, richness, and diversity, but influenced total and C4 grass cover. Propagule addition increased community richness and diversity in year of sowing and year after sowing, but contributed little to total cover. Dominant grass suppression had an effect on new species recruitment in one of two species pools, with suppression of all dominant grasses having the greatest influence on total cover and richness of new species. These results suggest that dominant species collectively are responsible for modulating stable species composition during community assembly and can act as a biotic filter to the recruitment of new species, but diverse subordinate species assemblages are more important for temporal stability.