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How can our understanding of coastal habitat dependencies facilitate better decision making?
Citation:
Littles, C., C. Jackson, Ted DeWitt, AND M. Harwell. How can our understanding of coastal habitat dependencies facilitate better decision making? Coastlines & People Scoping Meeting, San Diego, CA, September 26 - 28, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
The University Cooperation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) is bringing together scientists from across the United States to identify emerging research needs related to how coastal environmental variability and natural hazards impact populated coastal regions. Dr. Chanda Littles (ORISE postdoctoral fellow) was invited to give a brief overview of my research and discuss how it relates to the broader Coastlines and People (CoPe) initiative. She will highlight results of her recent meta-analysis summarizing how diverse coastal habitats contribute to final ecosystem goods and services. Over the course of the meeting, participants will help identify research opportunities and gaps that will be developed into short white papers to be shared widely.
Description:
Given the growing desire to incorporate ecosystem goods and services (EGS) considerations into coastal planning efforts, it is imperative that stakeholders understand how coastal habitats affect the availability and delivery of those EGS. Nonetheless, methods requiring long-term data, funding and/or unique expertise may limit the use of that material by coastal communities with fewer resources. To make the linkages between habitats and EGS more apparent, we evaluated the relationship between habitat class (per the Coastal & Marine Ecological Classification Standard, CMECS) and EGS beneficiaries (per the Final Ecosystem Goods & Services Classification System) using a “weight of evidence” approach that synthesized results from published literature, then assessed CMECS habitat classes most relevant to each beneficiary group. Approximately 2,800 unique articles were identified by search engines using terms including “ecosystem service” or “ecosystem good”, along with “coast,” “nearshore,” and/or “habitat.” After an initial filtering process using titles and abstracts, approximately 16% of journal articles addressed linkages between habitats and EGS beneficiaries and were retained for subsequent analysis. Recreational (83%) and industrial (35%) beneficiary groups were most cited in literature, with experiential-users/hikers and commercial fishermen the most prominent users represented in each category, respectively. Recreational users were also linked to the widest diversity of CMECS habitat subclasses (i.e., 22 of 26). Forested and scrub-shrub wetlands (e.g., mangroves) and emergent wetlands, were most relevant for property owners, frequently cited as providing protection from storm surge. Results provide an overview of coastal habitats most utilized by various beneficiary groups to obtain EGS, and this information may assist in efforts to prioritize restoration or evaluate how development scenarios may affect ecosystem service delivery in coastal communities.