Large-Scale Ecosystem Restoration: Five Case Studies from the United States.

• Author: Mintz, Joel A.
• Position: Book review

From the 1970s on, much of the focus of environmental law in the United States was on the abatement of pollution and (to a lesser extent) its prevention. (1) In recent years, however, significant efforts have been mounted to restore or rehabilitate natural aquatic systems that were degraded by contamination, land development, and other human activities. In Large-Scale Ecosystem Restoration: Five Case Studies from the United States, (2) Mary Doyle and Cynthia A. Drew have skillfully edited a fascinating collection of essays that describe the institutional, economic, ecological, and political aspects of five large-scale, publicly funded and administered ecosystem restoration projects. In particular, their book presents case studies of restoration programs in the Florida Everglades, the Platte River Basin, the California Bay-Delta, Chesapeake Bay, and the Upper Mississippi River Basin. Each case study consists of a detailed description of the program and its sociopolitical context, an analysis of the ecology of the system being restored, and a discussion of the economic costs and benefits of the program.

The book is a first-of-its-kind effort, and it presents a plethora of information regarding these ambitious, costly, and controversial programs. Notwithstanding the technical complexity of its subject matter, the work is clearly written throughout. It sheds considerable light on the numerous challenges that inhere in restoring and protecting long abused water systems that are regulated by numerous governmental institutions and of vital interest to a multiplicity of stakeholders.

The program descriptions for each of the five restoration projects studied provide a wealth of information that is not available elsewhere. They describe--in terms fully comprehensible to nonscientists--the geographical and biological features of each aquatic system, the ways in which each has become degraded, how the need for system-wide rehabilitation became obvious, and the beginnings and evolution of restoration efforts. Each of these chapters is well documented and authoritative. Moreover, in many cases the program descriptions reflect the inside knowledge of key participants in the restoration efforts--a vital component of any truly comprehensive overview of those programs.

Each of the chapters regarding the ecology of the water systems was written by the same author, Dr. Thomas Crisman, who provides a crisp and understandable summary of the ecological features...