Maryland/DC Chapter, The Nature Conservancy, 425 Barlow Place, Suite 100, Bethesda, MD, 20814, USA.
Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research, 401 9th Street NW, Suite 630, Washington, DC, USA.
Environ Manage. 2022 Dec;70(6):950-964. doi: 10.1007/s00267-022-01725-5. Epub 2022 Oct 8.
Wetland restoration is an important water quality and climate resilience strategy. Wetland restoration rarely considers tradeoffs at large spatial and temporal scales, which limits capacity to aid decision makers. High resolution data can reveal hundreds to thousands of possible restoration options across a landscape, but guidance for setting restoration targets at these scales is limited. This study uses structured decision making (SDM) as a process for evaluating the desirability of numerous restoration options, with a case study on the Outer Coastal Plain of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, USA. The Nature Conservancy, in partnership with federal, state, and nonprofit organizations, evaluated a decision to target large-scale wetland restoration based on two fundamental objectives: improve water quality and enhance climate resilience. A total of 964 potentially restorable alternatives were delineated across the study area. The alternatives were evaluated on seven water quality and climate resilience criteria. High-priority alternatives were mapped based on multi-criteria ranking methods and principal component analysis. Sensitivity analysis included varying nutrient load data, implementing multiple ranking methods with different assumptions, and varying criteria weights. The maps revealed seven distinct regions of restoration opportunities. Tradeoffs were evaluated to distinguish between desirable and less desirable regions. Results indicated that three regions were promising choices to initiate landowner engagement and outreach. This study highlights the advantages of SDM to structure large-scale restoration decisions. In doing so, our work offers a roadmap toward further developing SDM in future applied restoration contexts.
湿地修复是一项重要的水质和气候弹性策略。湿地修复很少考虑大时空尺度上的权衡取舍，这限制了为决策者提供帮助的能力。高分辨率数据可以揭示景观中数百到数千种可能的修复选择，但在这些尺度上设定修复目标的指导有限。本研究使用结构化决策 (SDM) 作为评估众多修复选择的可取性的过程，以美国切萨皮克湾流域外滨海平原为例。大自然保护协会与联邦、州和非营利组织合作，评估了基于两个基本目标（改善水质和增强气候弹性）来确定大规模湿地修复的决策：一是评估基于改善水质和增强气候弹性这两个基本目标，决定是否要开展大规模湿地修复。在整个研究区域内，共划定了 964 个潜在可修复的替代方案。这些替代方案根据七个水质和气候弹性标准进行了评估。基于多标准排名方法和主成分分析，绘制了高优先级替代方案的地图。敏感性分析包括改变营养负荷数据、使用具有不同假设的多种排名方法以及改变标准权重。地图显示了七个不同的修复机会区域。通过权衡分析来区分理想区域和不太理想的区域。结果表明，有三个区域是启动土地所有者参与和外联的有希望的选择。本研究强调了 SDM 在构建大规模修复决策方面的优势。通过这样做，我们的工作为未来应用恢复背景下进一步开发 SDM 提供了路线图。
