Restoration challenges and strategies in Iceland

• Main Author: Ása L. Aradóttir
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.631.4422; http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/projects/scape/uploads/6/Aradottir.pdf

The main challenge to restoration in Iceland is vast areas of severely degraded land that has limited resource retention and limited ecosystem functioning. These are often hostile environments for plant establishment and survival, due to unstable surfaces that are prone to intensive cryoturbation and erosion by wind and have limited water-holding capacity. Most of the degraded rangelands are open to traditional sheep grazing, which may limit restoration options and affect their success. The size of the degraded areas calls for low-input, but effective restoration strategies. Iceland has long history of fight against soil erosion and reclamation for improved productivity of rangelands. However, these efforts have for the most part been based on agronomic approaches. Emerging restoration objectives, resulting in part from more diverse land uses and in part from new environmental standards on national and international level, call for new methodology. Restoration of damaged ecosystems is one of the three main themes of soil conservation work in Iceland today. The others are halting of severe erosion and land