Burger Joanna, Gochfeld Michael, Powers Charles W
Division of Life Sciences, Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources, Rutgers University, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8082, USA.
J Environ Manage. 2007 Jan;82(2):189-99. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2005.12.012. Epub 2006 Mar 22.
The United States and other developed countries are faced with restoring and managing degraded ecosystems. Evaluations of the degradation of ecological resources can be used for determining ecological risk, making remediation or restoration decisions, aiding stakeholders with future land use decisions, and assessing natural resource damages. Department of Energy (DOE) lands provide a useful case study for examining degradation of ecological resources in light of past or present land uses and natural resource damage assessment (NRDA). We suggest that past site history should be incorporated into the cleanup and restoration phase to reduce the ultimate NRDA costs, and hasten resource recovery. The lands that DOE purchased over 50 years ago ranged from relatively undisturbed to heavily impacted farmland, and the impact that occurred from DOE occupation varies from regeneration of natural ecosystems (benefits) to increased exposure to several stressors (negative effects). During the time of the DOE releases, other changes occurred on the lands, including recovery from the disturbance effects of farming, grazing, and residential occupation, and the cessation of human disturbance. Thus, the injury to natural resources that occurred as a result of chemical and radiological releases occurred on top of recovery of already degraded systems. Both spatial (size and dispersion of patch types) and temporal (past/present/future land use and ecological condition) components are critical aspects of resource evaluation, restoration, and NRDA. For many DOE sites, integrating natural resource restoration with remediation to reduce or eliminate the need for NRDA could be a win-win situation for both responsible parties and natural resource trustees by eliminating costly NRDAs by both sides, and by restoring natural resources to a level that satisfies the trustees, while being cost-effective for the responsible parties. It requires integration of remediation, restoration, and end-state planning to a greater degree than is currently done at most DOE sites.
美国和其他发达国家面临着恢复和管理退化生态系统的问题。对生态资源退化的评估可用于确定生态风险、做出修复或恢复决策、协助利益相关者做出未来土地使用决策以及评估自然资源损害。能源部（DOE）的土地为根据过去或现在的土地使用情况以及自然资源损害评估（NRDA）来研究生态资源退化提供了一个有用的案例。我们建议应将过去的场地历史纳入清理和恢复阶段，以降低最终的NRDA成本，并加速资源恢复。能源部在50多年前购买的土地范围从相对未受干扰到受严重影响的农田不等，能源部占用所产生的影响从自然生态系统的再生（益处）到接触多种压力源的增加（负面影响）各不相同。在能源部排放期间，这些土地上还发生了其他变化，包括从农业、放牧和居住占用的干扰影响中恢复，以及人类干扰的停止。因此，化学和放射性排放对自然资源造成的损害是在已经退化的系统恢复的基础上发生的。空间（斑块类型的大小和分散程度）和时间（过去/现在/未来的土地使用和生态状况）组成部分都是资源评估、恢复和NRDA的关键方面。对于许多能源部场地来说，将自然资源恢复与修复相结合以减少或消除对NRDA的需求，对于责任方和自然资源受托人而言可能是一种双赢局面，这既能消除双方代价高昂的NRDA，又能将自然资源恢复到令受托人满意的水平，同时对责任方来说具有成本效益。这需要比目前大多数能源部场地更大程度地整合修复、恢复和最终状态规划。
