Citation:

Martin, D., M. Mazzotta, AND J. Bousquin. Incorporating the social benefits of ecological restoration into planning, decision making, and monitoring. A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) Conterence, Washington, DC, December 03 - 07, 2018.

Impact/Purpose:

New methods are emerging to estimate the social benefits of ecological restoration. We present a rapid benefits indicator method to estimate who could benefit from restoration and by how much. We utilized the method in a case study on the Woonasquatucket River watershed, Rhode Island. We developed a decision support tool to help watershed managers decide which courses of action provide the most balanced social benefits of restoration.

Description:

Ecological restoration has traditionally been planned by evaluating ecosystem conditions, biodiversity, and production of ecosystem services, whereas evaluating the social benefits of restoration is uncommon. We present a structured decision making approach to evaluate the social benefits of restoration, in terms of who benefits and by how much, to aid in comparing multiple courses of action in urban areas. Our approach was developed through a collaborative case study in the Woonasquatucket River watershed, which spans rural land to the urban city center of Providence, Rhode Island. We partnered with a non-profit watershed organization to prioritize dozens of candidate wetland restoration sites in terms of potential flood water retention, scenic landscape, education, recreation, bird watching, and social equity benefits. We developed 24 benefit indicators based on several site characteristics: potential beneficiaries, site access, complementary landscape features that potentially enhance benefits, landscape features that may substitute for site benefits, social vulnerability to stressors, and how reliably benefits will be provided into the future. We applied conceptual modeling and spatial analysis to estimate indicator values for each candidate restoration site. Lastly, we developed a decision support tool to quantitatively aggregate the indicator values and help the organization prioritize the restoration sites for writing grant applications to fund restoration in the watershed. Results indicate that restoration sites in urban areas can provide greater social benefits than sites in less developed areas. This research provides an alternative way of planning for ecological restoration to that of traditional planning studies. We close by emphasizing the need for research into monitoring the social benefits of ecological restoration.

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