Spring 2025
SCI 6497
Instructors
Schedule
January 27
Wednesday, 1:30pm - 4:15pm

Ecological Restoration

Description

The disturbance, degradation, and destruction of ecosystems from anthropogenic impacts is a global challenge. Recognizing this crisis, the United Nations declared this decade (2021-2030) the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. In this course, we will explore the principles of ecology that are fundamental to the goal of ecosystem restoration, including restoring ecological function and structure to degraded lands. We will discuss these concepts across multiple ecosystem types (e.g. wetlands, coasts, forests, deserts), scales (e.g. parcels, regions, continents), and landscape contexts (e.g. urban, agricultural, landfills, mines). In doing so, we will address a series of interrelated questions that will help determine how we implement ecosystem restoration and what we restore these landscapes to:  What are the ecological processes of functioning communities, both plants and animals, that can be reinstated on degraded lands? What are the constraints to restoring natural communities (soil, species availability, interactions among species, changed physical environments)? How can restored habitats be integrated into landscape architecture and urban planning? What social and political hurdles must be overcome to advance an ecosystem restoration agenda?

Department
Landscape Architecture
School
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Course Level
Graduate
Interest Area
Design & Architecture
Credits
4
Cross Registration
Available