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Sparks, R. E. (1995). Need for ecosystem management of large rivers and their floodplains. BioScience. 45:168-182.
The author outlines what ecosystem management is as well as what it is not. The importance of large river floodplain ecosystems in providing diverse and rich habitats for aquatic and terrestrial species is discussed. Anthropogenic impacts on large floodplain rivers are reported to be extensive and to have profound consequences in system function. Most salient are issues of connectivity. The goals of ecosystem management are defined to be the maintenance or recovery of biological integrity of the ecosystem. Biological integrity is argued to comprise not just the full range of species present prior to anthropogenic impacts, but more importantly, all of the variability and processes that comprise the system. To define a reference point from which to manage from, the author suggests that the predisturbed ecosystem should be the appropriate benchmark. Restoration of the floodplain, the annual flood pulse, and the long-term variability in the system are forwarded as management policies to restore large river floodplain ecosystems.
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://www.umesc.usgs.gov/URL: http://www.umesc.usgs.gov/data_library/fisheries/fish_passage/sparks.html
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