Program Information

Over the past decade, SFEI has become a leader in the emerging, multi-disciplinary field of Historical Ecology. Given the rapid and complex changes of the past two centuries, the documentation of landscape change has become an essential tool for understanding both current conditions and restoration potential. The Historical Ecology Program creates this information using a range of innovative methods to recover and synthesize diverse historical data sources, providing essential information for the management of creeks, wetlands, and terrestrial environments.

Historical Ecology Projects are carried out in collaboration with local organizations, other SFEI programs, and an extended group of archivists, historians, and scientists. Key components of the program include the analysis of historical document accuracy, the synthesis of historical data into composite maps, and the visualization of landscape change through a variety of media.

The Historical Ecology Program has been recognized locally and nationally, and featured in publications such as New Scientist, Landscape Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Living Landscape: An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning, the ESRI Map Book, Conservation Biology in Practice, the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technologyand, the Historical Ecology Handbook.