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