Factors Controlling the Recovery of Aquatic Systems from Disturbance

Abstract

The enclosed report represents a summary of a two year effort to develop an approach for assessing the recovery of aquatic systems from disturbance. The report is divided into three sections: ( 1) a general overview of the results of an extensive search of the scientific literature for case studies on recovery of aquatic systems, (2) an extensive compilation of the raw data for case studies in which some aspect of the recovery of an aquatic system has been documented, and (3) a list of references for each of the case studies on recovery. Hence, this report summarizes case studies of recovery and what will be the necessary steps to develop a comprehensive useable approach to predicting recovery rates of organisms within aquatic systems.