Reclamation - restoring disturbed lands

The research, documented in the journal Environmental and Biogeochemical Processes, highlights an unexpected synergy between common soil bacteria, specifically Bacillus megaterium, and iron minerals. Together, these elements form a living biofilm that acts as a rechargeable geochemical capacitor. By capturing sunlight, the bacterial-iron film absorbs photons and captures electrons, storing them for use during dark periods. This ability opens up new avenues for understanding how soil microorganisms can adapt to varying light conditions, ultimately contributing to the degradation of harmful pollutants without direct sunlight.

“This is Velykyi Luh – the Great Meadow,” says Valeriy Babko, a retired history teacher and army veteran, standing on the former reservoir shoreline at Malokaterynivka village. For him, this extraordinary new-old environment represents more than nature alone. “It is an ancient, mythic terrain, woven through Ukrainian folklore,” he says.

I was recently reading up on Beaver Dam Analogs for a fiction project and thought I'd share some of the links I found really interesting. I got started on it because I frequently go for walks in the woods and there's an old logging road/snowmobile trail the beavers frequently flood since it's a low spot between two water bodies. I don't mind and just walk into the woods below their dam to hop across but a nearby landowner keeps destroying their dam to keep the trail dry. I wondered if I couldn't build them the start of a dam on the uphill side of the trail so they'd build there instead and keep the guy from escalating.

When Angela Chalk first heard there were ways that ordinary people could offset flooding in New Orleans, she was skeptical.

Thorn forest once blanketed the Rio Grande Valley. Restoring even a little of it could help the region cope with the impacts of climate change

archived (Wayback Machine)

In a drought-hit Mexican border region at the center of growing competition with the United States for water, conservationists are working to bring a once-dying river delta back to life.

What was once pasture is now a forest.

the city has created seven “biodiversity parks” on previously degraded land, reports contributor Nidhi Jamwal for Mongabay India.

Cleaning up contaminated land is a struggle. Meet some of the community leaders who are taking matters into their own hands.

Abstract Reclamation of disturbances from oil sands mining requires effective soil management to ensure successful plant establishment and to promote recovery of native plant communities.

Pretty good restoration, given that closure construction just finished last year. They still have a ways to go before they can walk away, but the main things (pit filling, capping of dumps) have been completed, and there's no more yellow iron rumbling across the site to close things up.

This law aims to put measures in place to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030, and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.

ABSTRACT The development of habitat restoration techniques for restoring critical woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) winter habitat will play an important role in meeting the management thresholds in woodland caribou recovery plans. The goal is to restore disturbed environments within critical winter habitat for the declining woodland caribou. Woodland caribou are diet specialists, utilizing lichen-rich habitat for forage during winter months. Cladonia sub-genus Cladina is the most frequently eaten species during this time. Herein, we provide: 1) A review of previously used methods for transplanting Cladonia sub-genus Cladina and their feasibility in restoring woodland caribou winter habitat; 2) A stepby- step protocol on how to carry out a terrestrial lichen transplant program (using Cladonia sub-genus Cladina and C. uncialis); and, 3) An evaluation of our protocol through the establishment of a case study in northern British Columbia. Our results indicate that transplanting C. sub-genus Cladina fragments is the most efficient technique for transplanting terrestrial lichen communities, but transplanting lichen ‘patches’ or ‘mats’ may also be effective.

Cool article about seed banks. We really need to start creating and using them

American Rivers has some new (as of a month ago) videos of the Copco 1 and J.C. Boyle dams being breached. I'm really excited to see how the Klamath river responds to these dams being removed.

A good example of rough mounding benefits.