Conservation strategies have increasingly given a central place to ecological restoration and habitat creation. (Adams 1996, 2002). Dynamic environmental processes such as river erosion and deposition are of particular importance in restoration (Adams 2003). There is potential for interdisciplinary studies that consider the development of ideas about nature and its restoration in the context of understanding of the physical and ecological processes (e.g. Hughes et al. 2001).
Past work has involved a study of institutional aspects of floodplain restoration in the UK, funded as part of the FLOBAR EU project. Papers arising from this work have explored the ideas of floodplain managers about the restoration of river and floodplain environments (Adams et al. 2004, 2005). Current research centres on institutional dimensions of large scale conservation projects in the UK.
Publications:
- Adams, W.M. (1996) ‘Creative conservation, landscapes and loss’, Landscape Research 21 (3): 265-276.
- Adams, W.M. (1997) ‘Rationalization and conservation: ecology and the management of nature in the United Kingdom’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers N.S. 22: 277-91.
- Adams, W.M. (2002) ‘Africa’, pp. 57-77 in M. R. Perrow and A.J. Davy (eds.) Handbook of Restoration Ecology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
- Adams, W.M. (2003) ‘When nature won’t stand still: conservation, equilibrium and control’, pp. 220-246 in William M. Adams and Martin Mulligan (eds.) Decolonizing Nature: strategies for conservation in a post-colonial era, Earthscan, London.
- Adams, W.M., Perrow, M.R. and Carpenter, A. (2004) ‘Conservatives and Champions: River Managers and the River Restoration Discourse in the UK’, Environment and Planning A 36: 1929-1942.
- Adams, W.M., Perrow, M.R. and Carpenter, A. (2005) ‘Perceptions of River Managers of Institutional Constraints on Floodplain Restoration in the UK’, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 48: 887-889.
- Hughes F M R, Adams W M, Richards K S R, Barsoum N, Muller E, Nilsson C, Decamps H, Foussadier R, Girel J, Guilloy H, Hayes A, Johansson M, Lambs L, Pautou G, Peiry J-L, Perrow M, Vautier F, Winfield M, (2001), “Managing flows for the restoration of floodplain woodland: local and reach scale factors in different European rivers” Regulated Rivers: Research and Management 17 325 – 345