Improving Wetland Restoration Outcomes for Resilience Using an Ecosystem Services Gradient Framework
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State and federal agencies, Non-Government Organizations, and the private sector invest heavily to restore and build resilience of tidal wetlands. Methods are needed to understand how restoration and monitoring metrics may be used to characterize a wetland’s ecological condition and capacity to produce valued ecosystem goods and services (EGS; biophysical outputs that contribute to human well-being). Ecosystem resilience objectives include intermediate (e.g., flood mitigation) and final (e.g., property protection) EGS directly benefitting people. The assessment of key metrics will contribute to development of an Ecosystem Services Gradient (ESG) framework used to convey predicted capacity of coastal sites to produce select EGS under various management scenarios. The ESG framework builds upon the Biological Condition Gradient, a model that describes changes in the biological condition along a stressor gradient. The condition of an ecosystem changes both as stressors exacerbate adverse pressures (e.g., sea-level rise), and as stressors are alleviated due to restoration actions designed to improve biological integrity and return an ecosystem to a previous ecological state. Therefore, an ESG can be used to determine whether changes in biophysical attributes at a wetland site would result in a consequent change in quality or quantity of the economy, public health, or other aspects of well-being in coastal communities. Decision makers can use this approach to help identify, quantify, and clearly communicate potential gains or losses in EGS and apply them to relevant project needs. The ESG concept can be used to: project efficiency of restoration actions for resilience and the provision of benefits; define success; and facilitate interdisciplinary communication about outcomes and the nature of ecosystem services among stakeholder groups, managers, and researchers. This methodology could be applied to a wide range of ecosystem types and EGS benefits and is initially being tested through case studies in Oregon tidal wetlands to link “beneficial use” restoration goals, such as property protection in the form of resilience to sea-level rise, to site-specific beneficiaries and meaningful ecological metrics of EGS.