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Riparian rehabilitation planning in an urban–rural gradient: Integrating social needs and ecological conditions

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Abstract

In the present context of global change and search for sustainability, we detected a gap between restoration and society: local communities are usually only considered as threats or disturbances when planning for restoration. To bridge this gap, we propose a landscape design framework for planning riparian rehabilitation in an urban–rural gradient. A spatial multi-criteria analysis was used to assess the priority of riversides by considering two rehabilitation objectives simultaneously—socio-environmental and ecological—and two sets of criteria were designed according to these objectives. The assessment made it possible to identify 17 priority sites for riparian rehabilitation that were associated with different conditions along the gradient. The double goal setting enabled a dual consideration of citizens, both as beneficiaries and potential impacts to rehabilitation, and the criteria selected incorporated the multi-dimensional nature of the environment. This approach can potentially be adapted and implemented in any other anthropic–natural interface throughout the world.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Agency for Science and Technology of Argentina (PICT-2009-0125 and PME grants to GZ and PFDT scholarship granted to BGJ at the National University of Lomas de Zamora). The authors would also like to thank the Maimónides University for financial and logistic support. The authors gratefully thank Valter Amaral, Pedro Laterra, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions which helped to improve the manuscript.

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  1. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas (IADIZA), Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Gobierno de Mendoza, CONICET, Av. Ruiz Leal s/n Parque General San Martín, 5500, Mendoza, Argentina

    Bárbara Guida-Johnson

  2. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Padre Jorge Contreras 1300, Parque General San Martín, 5502, Mendoza, Argentina

    Bárbara Guida-Johnson

  3. Departamento de Ecología y Ciencias Ambientales, CEBBAD, Universidad Maimónides, Hidalgo 775, 1405, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Gustavo A. Zuleta

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  1. Bárbara Guida-Johnson
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  2. Gustavo A. Zuleta
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Correspondence to Bárbara Guida-Johnson.

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Guida-Johnson, B., Zuleta, G.A. Riparian rehabilitation planning in an urban–rural gradient: Integrating social needs and ecological conditions. Ambio 46, 578–587 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-016-0857-7

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