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Forest Landscape Restoration pp 155–176Cite as

Alternative Approaches to Urban Natural Areas Restoration: Integrating Social and Ecological Goals

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Part of the book series: World Forests ((WFSE,volume 15))

Abstract

Commonly accepted goals and practices of ecological restoration may serve for certain projects that are aimed to match with accepted standards of historical authenticity in terms of ecological diversity, structure, and function, particularly in less disturbed, large scale sites. This may not be the case with restoration projects in urban natural areas, however, and attempting to apply this “classical” approach to restoration management of some urban sites may not only be ecologically unrealistic but also socially unacceptable. In this paper I examine key social and ecological issues and constraints in case studies of urban natural areas restoration programs in Chicago, IL and San Francisco, CA. While the classical approach can be appropriate for some sites, I argue that others sites might be better managed along a spectrum of alternative approaches, with different principles and practices emphasized to balance social and ecological goals. The USDA Forest Service’s Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) has long been used to understand key biophysical, social, and managerial constraints and opportunities in planning and managing national forest recreation areas, and I outline how a similar scheme might be developed for identifying appropriate methods for restoring urban natural areas.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Mimi Wagner, Herb Schroeder, Palle Madsen and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Chicago, IL, USA

    Paul H. Gobster

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  1. Paul H. Gobster
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Correspondence to Paul H. Gobster .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Ctr. Forest Disturbance Science, US Forest Service, Green St. 320, Athens, 30602, Georgia, USA

    John Stanturf

  2. Center for Mined Land Rehabilitation, Queensland University, Brisbane, 4072, Queensland, Australia

    David Lamb

  3. , Danish Ctr Forest, Landscape Planning, University of Copenhagen, Vedelsgade 6, Vejle, 7100, Denmark

    Palle Madsen

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Gobster, P.H. (2012). Alternative Approaches to Urban Natural Areas Restoration: Integrating Social and Ecological Goals. In: Stanturf, J., Lamb, D., Madsen, P. (eds) Forest Landscape Restoration. World Forests, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5326-6_8

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