The Huron Natural Area:
An ecosystem approach

James J. Kay

Acknowledgement:
Ryan Metcalfe, Steve Diggon, Carl Burgess, Robin Greene, Marnie Eggen, Brian McHattie, Mark Conrad, Clint Johnson are undergraduate ERS students who worked on developing this framework for monitoring ecosystem integrity in the Huron Natural Area under the supervision of Prof. James Kay in consultation with Kitchener Parks and Recreation department staff

This work is a precursor to the master plan for the site (completed March, 2001).

The Ecosystem Approach Applied to Huron Natural Area.: A. Define the ecosystem; B. Describe the ecosystem as a self-organizing entity; C. How do we evaluate Integrity for this ecosystem?; D. Is this integrity threatened?; E. How do we maintain integrity in this system?; F. How to deal with Emergent Complexity..........

The Ecosystem Approach Applied to Huron Natural Area

The city of Kitchener and the Waterloo County school board are in the process of purchasing a property which contains a mixture of wetlands, trout streams, ponds, fields, and lowland and upland forest both natural and plantations. It is a rich mix of the ecosystem types found in south western Ontario. The property is bounded by suburbia, industrial and agricultural land.

Our task is to advise on the ecological integrity of the site. Our approach to this task is still under construction so this report is only partial. Also we have several hundred pages of consultants reports and student papers, all of which can't be presented here, but much of which is relevant. We have not yet got to the stage of understanding which allows us to distill things down to a few dozen pages. What follows are the pieces we have in brief.

Throughout we used the ABCE methodology which is an adaptation of Dorney's ABC methodology. This methodology allows us to use different disciplinary perspectives without loosing our sense of the whole.

The ecosystem approach is both analytic and synthetic. It involves analysis of living systems by disciplinary science. But understanding comes from synthesizing together the different perspectives gained from disciplinary science. These two phases of the ecosystem approach, as they apply to this undertaking, are portrayed in the following diagram. In the first phase all the communities are examined by each discipline. In the second each community is examined by all the disciplines in order to get a integrated understanding of the whole

Phase 1 Analysis: The study of the park by discipline.

Phase 2: Synthesis: The study of the park as communities.

Applying the Steps in the Ecosystem Approach

A. Define the ecosystem

Hierarchy (The vertical perspective, what is a part of what?): Define the Nested Holons (nested living systems); this defines the contextual relationships.
Scale and Extent (the horizontal perspective, where do things begin and end?): What are the boundaries of observation?; What are the processes which define the whole?; What are the boundaries of the ecosystem, the holon of focus?
Structure

Our ecosystem boundaries are set by the property lines on the site which is determined by the City of Kitchener in conjunction with the school board. Our temporal focus is long term.

We choose four levels to focus on inside the ecosystem:

the landscape,
the communities,
the populations,
the individuals.

The park is part of:

a wider system, the Strasburg Creek sub watershed,
whose environment is the Grand River watershed
which is part of the wider environment of the Great Lakes Basin, particularly southwestern Ontario.

B. Describe the ecosystem as a self-organizing entity

Non-Linear Models: The synergistic relationships, the cycles, the feedback loops, virtual worlds.

The attractors (organizational states) and their domains:

What are the attractors?: In what direction will the ecosystem tend to develop? What are its propensities?
(Self-organization theory of dissipative structures helps answer this.)
What is the behaviour of the ecosystem about the attractors?: (Homeostatic, Stable, Figure [[infinity]], Unstable but persists, chaotic?)
Are there bifurcation points?
What are the potential flips between attractors?: What triggers the flips?; How can we monitor for them?
What is the interplay of energy, exergy, information and environmental conditions (in space and time) which shapes the ecosystem?: Think carefully about the Figure [[infinity]], their scale and extent, the nested holons and their interactions and connections, the information available to the ecosystem, and the environmental conditions it must live with.
(Ecological history and non-equilibrium thermodynamics help answer this)

We are currently doing this on a community by community basis. It has been done for wetlands, streams and upland woods. Ecological analysis usually focuses on inventorying species and sometimes habitats. Our analysis focuses on processes, particularly the figure [[infinity]]. What emerges is a rich description of the changes in the communities as they go through their annual and other cycles. Particular emphasis is placed on identifying events which occur infrequently but have substantial impact on the community (windstorms, floods, harvest for example). In this regard we have found the knowledge of local people to be invaluable. One family has kept records with maps and photos of how the site has changed since the turn of the century. We also have a series of air photos which go back to the 1930s. The most difficult challenge facing us is the identification of the different attractors.

Some examples of different attractors and potential flips:

For example, the closed soft maple swamp in the wetland community could be pulled toward different attractors based on the amount and duration of the flows of water.

a) Drying events such as an extended drought could pull the system toward an upland forest community or grassland with associated vegetation structure.

b) If there are extended periods of flooding causing high water levels, the attractor would be that of a marsh ecosystem. This is because the red and silver maple are tolerant to flooded conditions within 30% to 40% of the growing season. If flooding events are greater than this threshold, the forest trees will die, giving way to more water tolerant herbaceous marsh vegetation.

C. How do we evaluate Integrity for this ecosystem?

(What states of ecosystem organization are acceptable to us?)
What are the ecological processes (at each of the nested levels) we value and/or need?: How do we identify these?; How do we measure the status of these processes?; (Notice that this takes us back to step A above)

What follows are the activities and characteristics which determine/describe the organization and thus the integrity of each of the nested levels within the ecosystem. It is not sufficient to simply describe these as they now are, but to also explore how they will be affected by environmental change and how they will evolve over time, paying particular attention to figure [[infinity]] and catastrophic behaviour. All of this is in the context that we do not wish this site to be altered by external human influences, but it is to be used for recreation and education.

We have only established in the broadest of terms which attractors are unacceptable. For example; clear cutting the forest plantations on site, or leaving these same age stands to collapse all at once, or the invasion of the wetlands by purple loosestrife spreads.

The Landscape

The Communities

Populations

D. Is this integrity threatened?

What are the external forces which could effect the organizational status of the system?: Use the nested ABCE methodology to identify the external influences on the organization of the ecosystem. (stress-response ecology)
What are the thresholds of flips to the unacceptable attractors? (states of ecosystem organization): How do we monitor to make sure these thresholds are not crossed?

So for each hierarchical level, outside the ecosystem, we have done an ABCE analysis of factors which effect self-organization within the ecosystem and thus need to be monitored and studied:

The Wider Environment
GREAT LAKES BASIN (CENTRAL SOUTH WESTERN ONTARIO)

The Great Lakes Basin, in particular Central South Western Ontario, has been identified as the largest geographical extent which will influence the Huron Natural Area. This geographic boundary is specifically chosen to account for all flows that run into the study area. This outer most hierarchical level will form the `wider environment' which will be studied and monitored. The effects of both point and non point sources of air pollution coming from outside the 'Wider Environment' also need to be considered and monitored.

The Environment
GRAND RIVER WATERSHED

The Wider System
STRASBURG CREEK SUB WATERSHED

Strasburg Creek sub-watershed (The Wider System), is located within the Grand River Watershed. Everything which impacts this sub-watershed has an effect on the study area. All water from this level drains directly into and through Huron Natural Area. For this specific reason, all four components of the organizing principle are needed at this extent to identify the influences on the integrity of the Huron Natural Area.

Again this is a list of influences, but it does not deal with the dynamics of the effects of the influences on the organization and hence integrity of the Huron Natural Area. But it does identify the aspects which need to be studied.

E. How do we maintain integrity in this system?

How do we mitigate known threats?
How do we promote positive influences? (For example; fire in a prairie)
How do we monitor the ecosystem so as to detect changes due to previously unidentified external influences?

This is the question we have dealt with the least. A few threats which need to be dealt with quickly have been identified:

An asphalt plant on site is being shut down.
Drainage patterns from new sub divisions must be understood as there is reason to suspect that they will fundamentally change the nature of the wetlands on site. The wetlands could be subjected to an increased duration of water flow and also runoff from lawns and roads which will limit some vegetation and may reduce breeding habitats, food sources and promote the spread of exotic species. Rather than take remedial action, altering the subdivision plan before construction to avoid these problems is being pursued.
Invasion by Purple Loosestrife, which spreads quickly and chokes out natural vegetation, limiting habitats and species diversity, would force the wetland to a dry land ecosystem (a new attractor for the wetlands which represents an unacceptable condition).
The loading of phosphorus (runoff from fertilizers, cleared land) induces an explosion of algal growth which can choke the stream ecosystem by causing eutrophic conditions which upset habitats and food sources for resident species and give way to other fish species.

F. How to deal with Emergent Complexity..........

When all is said and done, our ability to predict is severely limited. Unexpected events and trends will occur. Surprise will happen, complexity will emerge. We must therefore rely on anticipatory and adaptive management.

This project started out explicitly using an ecosystem approach and this is the approach used by the City of Kitchener in its planning and parks and recreation departments. So a bureaucracy is in place that has this focus already. A steering committee has been established which will focus on maintaining the integrity of the area while allowing its use for recreation and education. The mandate of this committee is stewardship of nature and management of human use of the ecosystem. This is seen as an ongoing adaptive process.

To read much more about the Huron Natural Area visit its home page.

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The Huron Natural Area: An ecosystem approach