Sponsor
Portland State University. Environmental Sciences and Resources Ph. D. Program
First Advisor
Heejun Chang
Term of Graduation
Summer 2018
Date of Publication
8-8-2018
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Environmental Sciences and Resources
Department
Environmental Sciences and Resources
Language
English
Subjects
Dam retirement, Stream restoration, Social history, Restoration ecology
DOI
10.15760/etd.6399
Physical Description
1 online resource (vii, 224 pages)
Abstract
Ecological conservation and restoration in the anthropocene must struggle with overlapping drivers of biodiversity and cultural loss; ruptures of the ecological environment mirror ruptures of human relationships with nature. And yet technology cannot remove humans from nature; technological and infrastructural reconfigurations of nature create new vulnerabilities and risks for humans and ecosystems alike. How can conservation and restoration science productively grapple with complex infrastructure systems and decision-making processes as biophysical and social drivers of ecosystem change?
Using dam removals in the USA and in the Mid Columbia River region of the Pacific Northwest, this dissertation develops a conceptual framework for Social, Environmental, and Technological Systems (SETS), and applies it at three spatial and temporal scales to the practice of dam removal as a river restoration strategy. Drawing upon existing data sets, as well as biophysical, document, survey, and interview data this dissertation addresses how dam removals have functioned in the context of the social histories of river restoration programs, examines how these restoration programs must continue to renegotiate the human relationships with nature through the infrastructure systems that enable certain forms of existence while precluding others.
Of particular interest is how restoration programs have increasingly functioned to deliver novel infrastructure solutions, while ignoring longer-term changes in ecological structure and function due to infrastructure development; in other words, the infrastructural work of restored ecosystems, and the infrastructural blind spots of restoration programs.
How restoration planning considers, or does not consider, infrastructural blind spots, is indicative of not only the biophysical drivers of threatened and endangered species loss, but also the political dynamics of decision making at large, and the power-knowledge relationships constituting legitimate and relevant knowledge in the decision making space.
In the Pacific Northwest, there appears to be a tipping point of social convention in centering treaty rights and obligations vis-a-vis ongoing processes of colonization and institutionalized scientific expertise. Ecological restoration will only be successful if it addresses both engineered infrastructures and social justice.
Rights
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/26218
Recommended Citation
Grabowski, Zbigniew Jakub, "Removing Dams, Constructing Science: Watershed Restoration Through a Socio-Eco-Technical Systems Lens" (2018). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 4515.
https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.6399