Principles of Ecological Landscape Design

Transcription

1 Principles of Ecological Landscape Design

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3 Principles of Ecological Landscape Design Travis Beck Washington Covelo London

4 2013 Travis Beck All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, Suite 300, 1718 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC ISLAND PRESS is a trademark of the Center for Resource Economics. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beck, Travis. Principles of ecological landscape design / Travis Beck. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Ecological landscape design. 2. Ecosystem health. I. Title. QH L35B dc Printed using Franklin Gothic Condensed Typesetting by Lyle Rosbotham Printed by Printed on recycled, acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America Keywords: biodiversity, biogeography, biomes, climate change, competition, disturbance, ecology, ecosystem management, edge effect, keystone species, landscape, landscape ecology, microclimate, plant communities, plant populations, soils, succession, Sustainable Sites, water

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7 To those who taught me ecology and biology, especially Mr. Tolley, Richard Irwin, and Dr. Ralph Boerner.

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9 Contents Acknowledgments Foreword xi xiii Introduction 1 1 Right Plant, Right Place: Biogeography and Plant Selection 7 2 Beyond Massing: Working with Plant Populations and Communities 33 3 The Struggle for Coexistence: On Competition and Assembling Tight Communities 65 4 Complex Creations: Designing and Managing Ecosystems 89 5 Maintaining the World as We Know It: Biodiversity for High-Functioning Landscapes The Stuff of Life: Promoting Living Soils and Healthy Waters The Birds and the Bees: Integrating Other Organisms When Lightning Strikes: Counting on Disturbance, Planning for Succession An Ever-Shifting Mosaic: Landscape Ecology Applied No Time Like the Present: Creating Landscapes for an Era of Global Change 235 Bibliography 261 Index 273

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11 Acknowledgments This book is the culmination of a long process of thought and discovery, reaching back to graduate school and before. Therefore, more people have offered ideas, assistance, and support than I can name here. Above all, this book stands on the shoulders of the many ecologists whose articles I consulted and of all those who generously shared their work and experiences with me as case studies. However, there are several individuals and institutions whom I would especially like to thank. Martin Quigley was an essential ally and made numerous contributions. Carol Franklin offered encouragement and advice, as well as a case study and the Foreword. Erica Beade of MBC Graphics went above and beyond the call of duty in her preparation of illustrations for the book. The dedicated staff of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library at the New York Botanical Garden helped my research go smoothly. The main reading room at the New York Public Library s Schwartzman Building provided a congenial atmosphere for many hours of writing. Sarah Paulson hunted down several key images and was endlessly patient and supportive during the final push. At Island Press, I am grateful to Heather Boyer, who adopted this project immediately, proved patient during its maturation, and pushed me to complete it when the time came, and to Courtney Lix, who has kept tabs on the entire process. Kate Lu obtained numerous permissions to help finalize the art package. Writing a book proved to be a rewarding and demanding undertaking, and I am grateful to everyone who helped push the project forward.

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13 Foreword The desire for informed sustainable, ecological, and regenerative design is increasing in every country, accentuated by recognition of the increasing severity of a wide variety of ecological crises (from the dead zones of many oceans to global climate change). A growing dissatisfaction with the ugliness and wastefulness of conventional development is accelerating this interest. Historically, plants for human landscapes were brought together for medicinal, economic, or aesthetic purposes. Now, a new paradigm is finally catching the popular imagination. In this era of threatened environmental Armageddon, ecological design, and in particular ecological planting design, is finally being understood as a critical tool for our ultimate survival. With the loss of almost all our undisturbed natural landscapes, there is also a growing appreciation of the beauty and function of our indigenous landscapes. Many professionals and nonprofessionals, from a variety of different disciplines and backgrounds, claim an expertise in creating natural plant communities to meet the growing demand for sustainable designs. Engineers, architects, landscape architects, restoration specialists, passionate volunteers, and others often find themselves in charge of the restoration of deteriorating plant communities or actual habitat re-creation. Engineering firms routinely turn out planting designs for floodplains and riparian corridors or planting plans for rain gardens and biotreatment swales, with little knowledge of the relationships of individual plant species to specific environmental conditions such as water tables or contours. However, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Cities big and small, throughout the country, are adopting new form-based zoning and performance standards for stormwater management measures and are asking designers for smart growth plans and green infrastructure. As mandates from the Environmental Protection Agency and other government agencies encourage more environmentally respectful designs in our metropolitan areas, and as the public increasingly sees the need for less ugly and wasteful land use practices, attention is being focused on the successful design, installation, and establishment of native plant communities in appropriate environmental conditions that will sustain them. Additionally, nonprofit conservation and land management organizations, educational institutions, and public officials charged with evaluating and overseeing the implementation of mandated programs and practices want to see attractive, successful solutions, measured by clear performance standards. Until recently, the establishment or repair of native plant communities has been relatively unsophis-

14 xiv Foreword ticated. Ecological restoration and habitat re-creation are very new disciplines. Research into many aspects of plant ecology is either lacking entirely or discussed only in scientific articles, where the language is unfamiliar and the goal is not the translation of research into design actions. Compounding these problems, the older natural sciences often had a tradition of isolation. Even scientists within the same discipline often had difficulty communicating with their peers. (Until recently, soil scientists specialized in either soil structure, soil chemistry, or soil biology. They failed to communicate with each other and to understand soil as an interacting medium, where all these components are interdependent.) Only a few books have tackled the subject of linking the structure, function, composition, and organization of landscapes directly to ecological processes. Richard T. T. Forman, professor of landscape ecology at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, has been one of the first authors to call our attention to the fact that spatial patterns reflect these processes. He has written a number of books and articles introducing designers to ecological ideas, particularly Landscape Ecology Principles in Landscape Architecture and Land Use Planning, with Wenche Dramstad and James Olson (1996), and Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions (1995). Principles of Ecological Landscape Design, by landscape architect Travis Beck of the New York Botanical Garden, is an excellent expansion of earlier books on this subject. This wonderful book is the most comprehensive exploration of a planting design approach based on the principles of plant ecology yet to be provided to designers. Principles of Ecological Landscape Design interweaves very clear descriptions of critical ecological processes to explain the effects of biogeography, foodwebs, nutrient cycles, plant and animal interactions, and many other factors on species composition, function, and spatial organization in natural plant communities. Each principle of plant ecology is paired directly with the implications for planting design, including the ecological processes that have shaped broad landscape configurations such as edges, centers, the fragmentation of a landscape, and the connections between landscapes. For ecological planting design to be more than greenwashing, this book provides much-needed and long-awaited access to principles, strategies, and specific directions. It allows us to understand, with scientific rigor, the full requirements of establishing thriving plant communities in appropriate habitats, with appropriate plant companions and in requisite numbers and densities. It offers us both an overview of the central issues and a concise, easy-to-use reference. In many ways, this book is recognition of our newfound sophistication and of how far we have come since the era of progress of the 1950s to the 1980s and since Ian McHarg wrote Design with Nature in With our increasing need to change the destructive plans and practices of the recent past, and with our growing familiarity with ecological ideas, this book is an indispensable next step, firmly linking the breadth and depth of essential ecological processes directly to design actions. In doing so, Beck has given us a new and better toolbox for ecological planting design. Carol Franklin, RLA, FASLA Founding Principal, Andropogon Associates, Ltd. Philadelphia, PA May 2012