An Ecological Resilience Assessment to Inform Restoration of the Upper Mississippi River System
Abstract
Dynamic river-floodplain systems are able to maintain their function and structure in the face of natural disturbances. As anthropogenic pressures accumulate, the capacity of these ecosystems to absorb disturbances and maintain their structure and function may change. There is an interest in operationalizing resilience concepts in natural resource management, but large-scale assessments of ecological resilience remain rare. In support of the Upper Mississippi River Restoration program, we are undertaking a resilience assessment of the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS). We will provide an overview of our approach, which includes development of a shared understanding of the basic structure and function of the UMRS across a multi-agency partnership, quantification of broad-scale general resilience indicators, conceptualization of alternative ecological regimes, and theorizing how restoration projects might be used to influence resilience. We will highlight results and lessons learned thus far, and how we anticipate the assessment will assist natural resource managers to better recognize the system's ability to adapt to existing and new stresses.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMPA42A..03B
- Keywords:
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- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 4327 Resilience;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4332 Disaster resilience;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES