, 2004 and Nagy and Lockaby, 2012). These systems may be extensive Alectinib in vivo or rare in the landscape, represent unique habitats locally and globally, with significant social and ecological values (Moberg and Ronnback, 2003, Alongi, 2008 and Grossmann, 2012). They are generally heavily impacted by humans (Wohl, 2005 and Miettinen et al., 2012) and especially in coastal areas, urbanized (Burbridge, 2012). Despite the highly altered nature of these areas, the interest in restoring wetland and coastal ecosystems

is great as a way to mitigate damage from changing land use in upland areas of watersheds that cause downstream flooding (Bruijnzeel, 2004) and further challenges from sea-level rise, salt-water intrusion, and increased coastal storm and wave action under future selleck inhibitor climate (Kaplan et al., 2010, Maschinski et al., 2011 and Gilman et al., 2008). Restoring wet forests often requires a combination of hydrologic modification

and revegetation, with due consideration for natural recolonization (Allen et al., 2001 and Lewis, 2005). Restoring hydrologic functioning must begin with an objective examination of what is possible, in particular the extent to which hydroperiod can be truly restored. Fully restoring hydrological functioning goes beyond re-wetting but full restoration may be impractical because of cost, incompatibility with current land uses, or conflict with private property rights, especially in large riverine systems with extensive levees and flood control structures (Stanford et al., 1996, Lockaby and Stanturf, 2002 and Hughes

et al., 2012). Nevertheless, increased interest in “soft-engineering” approaches to water Ponatinib clinical trial management (Day et al., 2003 and Borsje et al., 2011), combined with predictions of coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise may change perceptions of feasibility (Danielsen et al., 2005 and Zhang et al., 2012). Restoring hydrologic functioning of rivers goes beyond forest restoration and may involve removing dams and breaching levees before restoring vegetation (Stanford et al., 1996, Schneider, 2010 and Hughes et al., 2012). Inundation regime remains critical for matching species to site; for example, mangrove forests globally are inundated ⩽30% of the time by tidal waters, which may require modifying the slope of the restoration site to the appropriate height above mean seal level (Lewis, 2005). If hydroperiod has not been altered, or can be easily restored, site factors are critical to determining restoration success. Many planting failures can be traced to outplanting species unadapted to the existing inundation regime (Stanturf et al., 1998, Stanturf et al., 2001 and Lewis, 2005).