You are here:
Ecosystem Services Profiles for Communities Benefitting from Estuarine Habitats along the Massachusetts Coast, USA
Citation:
Yee, S., L. Sharpe, B. Branoff, C. Jackson, G. Cicchetti, S. Jackson, M. Pryor, AND E. Shumchenia. Ecosystem Services Profiles for Communities Benefitting from Estuarine Habitats along the Massachusetts Coast, USA. Ecological Informatics. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 77:102182, (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2023.102182
Impact/Purpose:
The primary objective of this study was to evaluate variability in the beneficial uses of estuarine habitats among coastal communities in Massachusetts Bays. We leveraged a final ecosystem goods and services classification framework, the National Ecosystem Services Classification System Plus (NESCS Plus) as a systematic way to categorize users, or beneficiaries, of natural resources, the ecosystem services attributes they use or care about, and the coastal habitats providing those services. The Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS) Scoping Tool was used to provide a structured process for identifying priority user groups and ecosystem services profiles for each community, based on the relative frequency of mentions in community planning documents. We evaluated the degree to which communities are similar in their beneficiary and ecosystem services profiles, and the degree to which similarities can be scaled-up from local to regional to MassBays-wide. Finally, we evaluated the degree to which community-scale social, economic, and ecological characteristics explained variability in the relative importance of different user groups and ecosystem services to each community. Community-level ecosystem services assessments ultimately are intended to support identification of stakeholders, and to set the stage for defining locally-relevant restoration goals and targets, for designing and implementing projects that reflect what stakeholders care about, and for monitoring the effectiveness of restoration in terms of accruing benefits to local communities.
Description:
The Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Partnership is one of 28 programs in the U.S. EPA’s National Estuary Program (NEP) charged with developing and implementing comprehensive plans for protecting and restoring the biological integrity and beneficial uses of their estuarine systems. The Partnership has recently updated their comprehensive management plan to include restoration targets for coastal habitats, and as part of this effort, the program explored how to better demonstrate that recovery of ecological integrity of degraded ecosystems also provides ecosystem services that humans want and need. An essential step was to identify key stakeholders and understand the benefits important to them. The primary objective of the study presented here was to evaluate variability in beneficial uses of estuarine habitats across coastal communities in Massachusetts Bays. We applied a data mining approach to extract ecosystem services concepts from over 1400 community planning documents, applying a Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS) classification framework and related prioritization tool to identify the suite of natural resource users and ecosystem services they care about based on the relative frequency of mentions in documents. Top beneficiaries included residents, experiencers and viewers, property owners, educators and students, and commercial or recreational fishers. Beneficiaries had a surprising degree of shared interests, with top ecosystem services of broad relevance including for naturalness, fish and shellfish, water movement and navigability, water quality and quantity, aesthetic viewscapes, availability of land for development, flood mitigation, and birds. Community-level priorities that emerged were primarily related to regional differences, the local job industry, and local demographics. Identifying priority ecosystem services from community planning documents provides a starting point for setting locally-relevant restoration goals, designing projects that reflect what stakeholders care about, and supporting post-restoration monitoring in terms of accruing relevant benefits to local communities.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Ecosystem Services Profiles for Communities Benefitting from Estuarine Habitats along the Massachusetts Coast, USA