REVIEW ARTICLE

Evaluating Ecological Restoration Success: A Review

of the Literature
Liana Wortley,1,2 Jean-Marc Hero,3 and Michael Howes1

Abstract of empirical evaluations has grown substantially in recent

Assessing the success of ecological restoration projects is years. The increased age of restoration projects and num-
critical to justify the use of restoration in natural resource ber of papers that assessed ecological functions since previ-
management and to improve best practice. Although there ous reviews of the literature is also a positive development.
are extensive discussions surrounding the characteristics Research is still heavily skewed toward United States and
that define and measure successful restoration, moni- Australia, however, and identifying an appropriate refer-
toring or evaluation of projects in practice is widely ence site needs further investigation. Of particular concern
thought to have lagged behind. We conducted a litera- is the dearth of papers identified in the literature search
ture review to determine trends in evaluations of restora- that included any measure of socioeconomic attributes.
tion projects and identify key knowledge gaps that need Focusing future empirical research on quantifying ecosys-
to be addressed. We searched the Web of Knowledge tem services and other socioeconomic outcomes is essential
plus two additional restoration journals not found in the for understanding the full benefits and costs of ecologi-
database for empirical papers that assessed restoration cal restoration and to support its use in natural resource
projects post-implementation. We quantified the extent management.
that key attributes of success, including ecological (vegeta-
tion structure, species diversity and abundance, and ecosys-
tem functioning) and socioeconomic, were addressed by Key words: diversity and abundance, ecological function,
these papers along with trends in publication and restora- natural resource management, socioeconomic, vegetation
tion characteristics. Encouragingly, we found the number structure.

Introduction resource management policies. Identifying trends in where and

Ecological restoration has the potential to reverse land how empirical evaluations are being conducted will help direct
future research into areas where it is needed such that these
degradation, increase the resilience of biodiversity, and deliver
aims can be achieved.
important ecosystem services. The practice is being widely
Evaluating restoration is not straightforward, with extensive
incorporated into natural resource strategies from the local
debates surrounding what characterizes successful restoration
to global level; however, there is still uncertainty as to how
and how best to measure it. Early in the development of the
effective restoration programs actually are (Suding 2011). This
field, Hobbs and Norton (1996) provided a framework that
can be partly attributed to the relative youth of the discipline
helped define the practice of ecological restoration including
compared with the timescale that ecological processes take
the aims and the methodologies that can be used. Following
to develop; however, a number of authors reflect that poorly
this, Higgs (1997) argued the need to look beyond ecology
defined targets and a lack of quality (or any) monitoring greatly
and include historical, social, cultural, political, esthetic, and
inhibits our understanding of restoration (Bash & Ryan 2002;
moral aspects in defining the targets for restoration. Since
Miller & Hobbs 2007; McDonald & Williams 2009; Suding
then debates have continued over the goals of restoration
2011; Parkes et al. 2012). Empirical assessments of restoration
(Asbjornsen et al. 2005; Thorpe & Stanley 2011), the influence
success are thus critical for the development of the practice and
of climate change (Choi 2004; Fule 2008; Seabrook et al.
to justify the inclusion of ecological restoration into natural
2011), and socioeconomic circumstances (Hull & Gobster
2000; Burke & Mitchell 2007; Hobbs 2009; Le et al. 2012).
1 Urban Research Program, School of Environment, Griffith University, Gold Coast
All of these issues affect how restoration success should be
Campus, Gold Coast, Queensland 4222, Australia
2 Address correspondence to L. Wortley, email l.wortley@griffith.edu.au defined and measured, and synthesizing these debates may lead
3 Environmental Futures Centre, School of Environment, Griffith University, Gold to development of useful indicators.
Coast Campus, Gold Coast, Queensland 4222, Australia
The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) Primer is a
© 2013 Society for Ecological Restoration
key contribution to the field and aims to unite the discipline
doi: 10.1111/rec.12028 by delivering a practical overview of ecological restoration. It

Restoration Ecology 1
Trends and Gaps in Empirical Evaluations

provides a standardized definition (“the process of assisting the Methods

recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, A quantitative review was conducted of literature published up
or destroyed”), basic guidelines for restoration planning, and a until November 2012 using the methods outlined by Pickering
list of nine key attributes of successful restoration to help prac- and Byrne (2012). A search of English, primary academic lit-
titioners identify appropriate indicators of restoration success erature (i.e. not review papers or gray material) was conducted
(SER 2004). The attributes cover three general ecological out- using the Web of Knowledge database. It was later found
comes; vegetation structure, species diversity and abundance, that two key restoration journals, Ecological Restoration and
and ecological processes (Ruiz-Jaen & Aide 2005a) which Ecological Management and Restoration were not included in
are commonly used to classify indicators of ecosystem condi- this database and these were searched independently using the
tion in the literature (Noss 1990; Aronson & LeFloch 1996; same methodology as outlined below.
Ruiz-Jaen & Aide 2005b). The search terms used were: (restoration or restored) and
Solely focusing on ecological outcomes of restoration, how- (eco*) and (monitor* or success* or evaluat* or assess*).
ever, is insufficient for evaluating the success of restoration Limiting the search to restoration or restored rather than
projects. Identifying and measuring the socioeconomic benefits including reforestation, regeneration, reclamation, or rehabili-
provided by ecosystems have been key concerns of biodi- tation was done to focus on papers that were most likely to be
versity conservation with substantial work on the economic in line with the SER definition. It is acknowledged that we may
value of ecosystem services as well as the effect on wel- have missed articles by doing this; however, our experience
fare and community development (Sachs et al. 2009; Cardi- with the literature indicates that most of the relevant papers
nale et al. 2012). In the restoration literature, Bullock et al. that use these other terms also include “restoration” and would
(2011), Rey-Benayas et al. (2009), and Palmer and Filoso be picked up by the above search. We also chose to focus on
(2009) along with many others have discussed the bene- terrestrial ecological restoration projects excluding all aquatic
fit of assigning an economic value to ecosystem services and borderline marsh, mangrove, beach-dune, and wetland sys-
recovered through restoration, whereas Geist and Galatow- tems. Although this will have affected our results, narrowing
itsch (1999), Miller and Hobbs (2007), and Le et al. (2012) the scope of the paper allowed us to make more specific recom-
highlight the significant role of social influences in achiev- mendations for practice. A similar review of aquatic restora-
ing restoration success. Indeed, Shackelford et al. (2013) tion, however, would be a useful addition to the literature.
argue that such is the importance of socioeconomic aspects The search results were screened to identify papers that
to restoration success that an additional attribute encompass- assessed the outcomes of restoration post-implementation. We
ing social and cultural values should be added to the SER only retained articles where active restoration was conducted
Primer. including planting, weed control, fire replacement, and soil
Although the SER and other authors provide discussions of amendment, and excluded projects that were solely fenced or
the ecological, economic, and social attributes for successful abandoned. In addition, papers were not included that only
restoration and guidelines for assessing a project, it is not clear looked at the survival of plantings or where the restored site
the degree to which these are reflected in practical evaluations was used for production (i.e. forestry or grazing). Although
of restoration. This article reviews empirical assessments of survival is important for achieving success in restoration, we
terrestrial restoration projects to investigate: (1) the extent consider this an indication of the success of the planting
to which ecological, social, and economic outcomes have method rather than the restoration of an ecosystem. Similarly,
been addressed by empirical evaluations; (2) the types of including projects with a dual productivity purpose would
indicators used; and (3) general trends in the empirical have introduced measures of success that were not necessarily
research. Some reviews have already been conducted in the representative of restoration success. Restoring productive
area, most notably those by Ruiz-Jaen and Aide (2005a) land is an important aspect of restoration practice; however,
and Aronson et al. (2010). Ruiz-Jaen and Aide (2005a) increasing productivity on the site can be achieved at odds
similarly compared empirical work with the SER Primers, with the primary purpose of restoration as defined by the
however, they did not look at socioeconomic attributes and SER. It is acknowledged that this may have removed some
it is expected that the empirical literature will have grown economic focused papers, but we feel that the retained sample
considerably since this review. The comprehensive review by of literature is more representative of measures of ecological
Aronson et al. (2010) did focus on socioeconomic aspects restoration outcomes.
of ecological restoration, however, it only briefly touched The retained articles were classified using the criteria in
on the monitoring or evaluation literature and did not focus Table 1 including publication details, background informa-
on whether socioeconomic outcomes are being measured in tion on the restoration project, and details on the assessment
practice. Our review presents an important contribution to methods used. We categorized the evaluation or monitoring
the literature by complimenting the work by Ruiz-Jaen and methods as addressing ecological, economic, or social aspects.
Aide (2005a) and Aronson et al. (2010) and provides a Within the ecological category we further categorized the indi-
novel, focused look at the attributes addressed by empirical cators used into vegetation structure, diversity and abundance,
evaluations of restoration success as well as trends and gaps and ecological processes, following the methodology of Ruiz-
in the research. Jaen and Aide (2005a). Vegetation structure included measures

2 Restoration Ecology
 Trends and Gaps in Empirical Evaluations

Table 1. Categories used to classify the articles found through the restoration site over-time instead. Within the studies that used
literature search. a comparison site, around equal proportions of the literature
used only positive target references (38%) or only negative
Categories for classification
controls representative of the pre-restoration degraded state
Publication details • Journal of publication (40%; Fig. 4). Surprisingly, only 44% of studies used a positive
• Year published target reference.
Restoration project •
Location Ecological attributes were by far the most common mea-
characteristics •
Ecosystem type sures used for post-implementation restoration assessments
•
Type of degradation (Fig. 5). Of the surveyed literature, 94% of articles only used
•
Restoration method used measures of ecological attributes, and an additional 3.5% of
Evaluation/monitoring • Age of restoration papers also included social and economic attributes. Of the
methodology • Use of reference site and type of
few papers that looked at social attributes, six papers looked
reference used
• Type of attributes assessed (ecological,
at community engagement or participation in restoration, two
economic, or social) and the indicator papers investigated the links with education, and one paper
used conducted a survey of psychological benefits from volunteer-
ing in restoration. Most of the papers that included economic
attributes focused on the cost or resource requirement of the
of plant growth such as height, canopy cover, biomass, basal restoration activity (eight papers) and the remainder looked at
area, and litter cover. Diversity and abundance included flora the impacts of restoration on the income of farmers involved
and fauna species, microbial and fungal diversity as well as (two papers) and job creation (two papers).
functional and genetic diversity. Ecosystem processes included The three categories of ecological attributes were well
represented in the literature. Vegetation structure was included
measures of reproductive success or dispersal, nutrient cycling,
in 118 papers although only 4% of papers that included
soil development, pollination, and other biological interactions.
ecological attributes used vegetation as their sole measurement
We also recorded the methodology used for assessing eco-
(Fig. 5) and it was most commonly used in combination with
nomic and social aspects of the restoration project.
diversity and abundance measures. Ecological processes were
measured in 127 papers in total: 53 looked at nutrient cycling;
29 included soil structure or stability; 9 measured carbon
Results storage; 17 addressed dispersal success or mechanisms; 6
A total of 301 articles spanning 71 journals were identified included some measure of pollination; 12 looked at other forms
using the search criteria. Almost half (49%) of these articles of faunal activity within the site such as reproduction success
were published in just four journals: Restoration Ecology; Eco- or feeding; and 21 addressed other biological interactions or
logical Restoration and Management, Ecological Restoration; measure of ecosystem development. Diversity and abundance
and Forest Ecology and Management (Appendix S1, Sup- were the most frequently measured ecological attribute (Fig. 5)
porting Information). The number of publications increased with 213 papers. Flora was used in 143 papers compared with
over the 28-year time period that the search results covered 96 papers that measured fauna. Of the papers that looked at
(Fig. 1) and the majority of studies were published between fauna diversity and abundance, invertebrates where measured
2008 and 2012. The restoration projects were located in 31 more frequently than vertebrates with 48 and 34 papers,
countries, although North America was by far the most stud- respectively.
ied region (Fig. 2). From the terrestrial literature that was
surveyed, forests were the most represented ecosystem type
(50%), followed by grasslands (22%). Woodlands, shrublands, Discussion
and savannas were represented by 20% of papers, whereas 9% The number of empirical papers on the outcomes of restoration
looked at restoration conducted in riparian zones. Agriculture has grown considerably over the past 20 years, with the past
and grazing of these ecosystems were the leading causes of three being the most prolific. This supports the notion that
degradation that led to restoration (44%) and planting was the restoration is a rapidly developing field of research, with
most common method used to restore the ecological condition the outcomes of projects of significant interest. Although
of the sites (63%). ecological restoration became prominent in the academic
Empirical assessments of restoration outcomes looked at literature during the 90s, empirical studies of the outcomes
projects ranging from 1 to 120 years old, although projects of restoration are widely thought to have lagged behind.
over 35 years old were uncommon (5%). Restoration sites However, our results indicate that not only is the number of
of 1–15 years old were the most frequently studied (71%), papers on the topic increasing, but the majority of these are
with 5–10 years old the most common age group (Fig. 3). looking at projects that are greater than 5 years old. This is a
In conducting the assessments of these sites, the majority of positive sign as it demonstrates post-implementation empirical
studies included some form of reference or control site for research is catching up and the effects of restoration are being
comparison (74%). Of the 26% of papers that did not use measured over a longer timescale, something which Ruiz-
a site for comparison, 68% tracked the development of the Jaen and Aide (2005a) and Tischew et al. (2010) highlight

Restoration Ecology 3
Trends and Gaps in Empirical Evaluations

45
40
35

Number of Papers
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012
Year of Publication

Figure 1. The number of papers identified through the literature search per year of publication. Note: 2012 does not represent the full year as
publications were only searched up until November.

Reference Site
3%
4%
North America The SER Primer emphasizes that using a reference is a
10% critical aspect of achieving restoration success as it provides
Oceania
a clear depiction of the goals of the restoration project and
46% Europe a development state to evaluate against. Despite this, we
14%
Asia found that less than half of the surveyed literature actually
used a target reference for comparison, although a significant
South America
proportion of papers used a negative reference or control.
23% Africa This is likely evidence of the experimental nature of the
literature where experimental design often necessitates the use
of a control. Restoration success though is more commonly
Figure 2. Geographic distribution of restoration projects evaluated in the defined as a shift toward an existing or pre-existing functional
papers identified through the literature search. ecosystem (positive reference) rather than just a shift away
from the degraded state. This is an area of ongoing debate
though and the type of reference used should be a primary
as critical for furthering the field. Despite this progress, we
consideration in the design of empirical evaluation.
find that there are still limitations in the empirical research.

Location of Research Ecological Attributes

Part of the complexity in regard to understanding the out- The three types of attributes (diversity and abundance, veg-
comes delivered by ecological restoration is that the aim of etation structure, and ecological functioning) were all well
the restoration project, the best methods to use and what can addressed by the literature, although most papers only used
be achieved are often project-specific and subject to environ- measures of one or two attributes consistent with the findings
mental and socioeconomic variables (Miller & Hobbs 2007). of Ruiz-Jaen and Aide (2005a). Diversity and abundance mea-
As such, the transferability of research from one region to sures were the most common suggesting that this is considered
another is likely to be low. Positively, our results show that a primary objective of restoration success. These measures
empirical research into restoration outcomes covers a diver- provide not only an indication of the suitability of the area
sity of countries and ecosystem types which suggests that as a habitat, but can also be a proxy for other outcomes. For
project and regionally specific knowledge are being developed. example, species were also used to indicate the state of succes-
However, consistent with the findings by Ruiz-Jaen and Aide sion (Urbanska 1995; Dzwonko & Loster 2007; Courtney et al.
(2005a) the geographical distribution of the research is still 2010; Pais & Varanda 2010; So & Chu 2010; Burmeier et al.
heavily skewed toward North America. This is a notable lim- 2011), the dispersal mechanisms operating in the site (San-
itation in empirical research because, as Aronson et al. (2010) severo et al. 2011), and ecosystem processes (Vallauri et al.
points out, the high-income countries where the majority of 2002; Henson et al. 2009). In contrast, vegetation structure
restoration research is focused are not the areas of highest was used least in the literature and rarely used in isolation.
deforestation. Thus, there is still a large discrepancy between Although vegetation structure is often portrayed as the most
where restoration research is occurring and where restoration rapid and efficient means of assessing a site condition (Gib-
is most needed. bons & Freudenberger 2006), there are questions as to how

4 Restoration Ecology
 Trends and Gaps in Empirical Evaluations

≥50 yrs
45 - 50 yrs
40 - 45 yrs

Age of Restoration
35 - 40 yrs
30 - 35 yrs
25 - 30 yrs
20 - 25 yrs
15 - 20 yrs
10 - 15 yrs
5 - 10 yrs
<5 yrs
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Number of Publications

Figure 3. Maximum age of the restoration projects at the time of the empirical evaluation and the corresponding number of papers found in the literature
search. Note: if the paper included multiple restoration projects of different ages or conducted the research over a period of time, only the highest age of
a restoration project was used.

(a)
Negative Economic Social
22% 0.5%
0.5% 0.5%
40%
Positive 1%
2.5% 1%
Positive and
Negative Ecological
38% 94%

Figure 4. The percentage of papers that used a control (negative), a

(b)
target reference (positive), or both when a comparison was included in
Vegetation Diversity &
the paper. Structure 22% Abundance
4% 29%
11%
much can be inferred about an ecosystem from the structural 4% 17%
attributes (Palmer et al. 1997) and recent studies have demon-
strated results can vary considerably between observers (Cheal Ecological
Processes
2008; Gorrod & Keith 2009; Kelly et al. 2011). With limited 14%
resources, abundance and diversity measures may be favored
given the additional information that can be inferred from the
data. Figure 5. The breakdown of the attributes covered by the empirical
Unlike Ruiz-Jaen and Aide (2005a), we discovered literature: (a) the percentage of papers that addressed ecological,
that measures of ecological processes or functioning were economic, or social attributes individually and in combination; (b) of the
papers that included ecological attributes, the percentage that addressed
well addressed by the empirical literature. Ruiz-Jaen and
vegetation structure, diversity and abundance, and ecological processes.
Aide (2005a) identified two main reasons why ecological
processes were under-represented in their review; that they
take longer to develop than diversity and structure, and that literature. Of the papers that did, the primary focus was on
they generally require more time and resources to measure. resource input into the projects or the extent of community
Our findings are likely reflective of the aging of restoration involvement. These are very useful measures for the develop-
projects since 2005, with high time and resource requirement ment of the practice of restoration as they provide evidence of
expected to still be an issue. This change indicates a positive the costs (both through resource input and volunteer involve-
development for restoration practice as an increased under- ment) and the successful engagement of the local community.
standing of how restoration affects processes such as nutrient However, we need to look beyond these measures to fully
cycling, pollination, and erosion control is critical for the capture the socioeconomic outcomes that restoration delivers.
long-term persistence and stability of the projects, as well as Interestingly, we found no economic measure of ecosys-
understanding the role of restoration in the landscape context. tem services in post-implementation evaluations. This seems
at odds with the findings of Aronson et al. (2010) who found
ecosystem services addressed in 2.7% of the literature they
Socioeconomic Attributes surveyed from Restoration Ecology and 10.7% from other
Very few papers looked at socioeconomic attributes of journals. There are likely to be a number of reasons for
restoration post-implementation in the surveyed empirical the difference. First, we excluded all projects that included

Restoration Ecology 5
Trends and Gaps in Empirical Evaluations

a dual production purpose as it was felt that these would

• Understanding the socioeconomic benefits/impacts of
have diluted the focus on restoration success, although these
papers would likely have included more economic measure restoration is necessary to support the adoption of eco-
of ecosystem commodities. Second, there were a number of logical restoration in natural resource management. We
papers that looked at the improvement in ecological indica- suggest socioeconomic measures should be incorporated
tors that provide ecosystem services such as erosion con- into monitoring/evaluation practices as a key element of
trol and carbon storage, but they stopped short of assign- restoration success.
ing an economic value. Finally, during the literature search
we found a number of papers that estimated the provision LITERATURE CITED
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