Coastal Services Center

---

---

Quick Links Successful Monitoring Approaches Standard Monitoring Protocols Functional Assessment Adaptive Management Conclusion References

Innovative and Successful Monitoring and Adaptive Management Approaches

Volunteer divers for the Orange County Coastkeepers using standard monitoring protocol during kelp monitoring. Monitoring is critical to determining the success of coastal restoration efforts. As the examples below show, a scientifically based monitoring program enables project managers to assess the ability of the restoration to meet project goals and objectives, and to integrate adaptive management into the restoration work.

Successful Monitoring Approaches

The goals of a restoration monitoring program are to assess the performance of the restoration project relative to project goals, provide information that can be used to improve the performance of the project, and provide information to interested parties (Thom and Wellman 1996). It is important, therefore, that the monitoring plan be created during the planning phase of the project, once goals and performance criteria are established. The monitoring plan should be based on science and the successes of other projects. Over time, the initial plan may need to be modified based on ecosystem changes.

As part of the Estuary Restoration Act of 2000, NOAA is developing "A Framework for Monitoring Plans under the Estuary Restoration Act." The framework is scheduled to be finalized in fall 2003 and will be available at the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science Web site and provides guidance on the following main components of a monitoring plan:

• monitoring parameters,
• data evaluation methods,
• baseline monitoring,
• reference sites,
• monitoring frequency,
• adaptive management, and
• monitoring duration.

The following four elements of monitoring are addressed below:

• pre-restoration monitoring
• standard monitoring protocols
• functional assessment
• long-term monitoring.

> Return to top

Pre-Restoration Monitoring

Figure 1. Aerial photograph of contaminant monitoring locations prior to implementation of the Willapa River Estuary Restoration Project. Courtesy: Battelle.

Pre-restoration monitoring can provide valuable information on potential restoration endpoints and help develop project goals. For example, monitoring of the existing functions of a degraded Phragmites australis -dominated marsh relative to native Spartina spp. marshes along the Woodbridge River in New Jersey showed that reintroducing tidal inundation to the restoration site would enhance water quality functions and the development of salt marsh community structure and food webs.

Pre-restoration monitoring can also be used to assess the potential for coastal restoration actions to release contaminants posing ecological and human health risks. The presence of contaminants also has significant cost implications. At the Willapa River Estuary Restoration Project in Washington State (Figure 1), for example, researchers analyzed physical and chemical properties of soil, sediment, and water samples as well as coliform bacteria levels of the water and resuspended sediment at selected restoration sites and reference sites prior to dike breach and removal. They determined that this type of evaluation at restoration sites where land-use history shows a potential for contamination can improve project design and minimize risk to biological organisms.
> Return to top

Standard Monitoring Protocols

Standard monitoring protocols are important in situations where many observers are involved. For example, the Regional Kelp Restoration and Monitoring Protocol, a California program that uses hundreds of teams of volunteer divers from local California CoastKeeper affiliates, provides detailed instructions and training for the volunteers to ensure consistent and accurate monitoring of the extensive kelp restoration program (www.cacoastkeeper.org) (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Volunteer divers for the Orange County Coastkeepers using standard monitoring protocol during kelp monitoring. Courtesy: California CoastKeeper Alliance.

Standard monitoring protocols are also essential where results from many projects are part of a coordinated program. The Commencement Bay Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) Restoration Monitoring Program (URL) in Tacoma, Washington, provides a matrix of established monitoring criteria, including seven physical, twelve biological, and two chemical criteria (www.darcnw.noaa.gov). Project managers can select some or all of these criteria to monitor, depending on the goals and objectives of the project.

The Great Bay Estuary Eelgrass Mitigation project in New Hampshire provided an opportunity for the development of a new protocol for assessing original and restored eelgrass sites. Because the protocol can be used with any seagrass species, the researchers developed SeagrassNet, a global seagrass monitoring program. The monitoring protocol, sample field data sheets, data handling instructions, and a manual for scientific monitoring are available online at www.seagrassnet.org (Figure 3).
> Return to top

Functional Assessment

One popular method for determining restoration success is to compare the functionality of the restored habitat to that of natural habitat. This is complicated, however, by the fact that there is significant variability in both restored and natural systems and those functional parameters that characterize natural coastal habitat are often not well understood. Recent research has contributed to a greater understanding and application of many popular functional assessment tools. For example, stable isotope methods that were developed to analyze food webs in tidal salt marsh systems are now being used to assess the ability of created and restored systems to provide food for target species. Bioenergetics models are being proposed as a tool for designing coastal wetland restoration. These models estimate growth of fish under various environmental conditions and are being used by University of Washington researchers to determine how estuarine marsh habitats in different stages of recovery contribute to the growth of juvenile salmon. See Restoration Research for more information on innovative methods of functional assessment.
> Return to top

Long-Term Monitoring

It is generally recognized by restoration ecologists that the amount of time required for a restoration site to achieve the same functions as a natural marsh varies greatly, not only between regions (e.g., Pacific Coast versus Atlantic Coast) but also among the various ecological attributes of the restored habitat (e.g., aboveground biomass versus organic matter and soil characteristics). Craft, Broome, and Campbell (2002) determined that certain attributes, such as soil nitrogen pools in a brackish-water marsh, may require upwards of 30 years to achieve equivalence to a natural marsh. Thus, long-term monitoring is needed to reduce uncertainty in the outcome of restoration efforts. Resources for such monitoring should be committed from the outset.

The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) Program (www.lacoast.gov/cwppra) is committed to achieving long-term solutions to arresting coastal wetland loss in Louisiana. The coastal restoration plan developed by the CWPPRA Task Force addresses this long-term focus by providing for the allocation of resources to monitor requiring that each CWPPRA project be monitored for 20 years. Scientists and other technical experts developed standardized protocols for the following seven categories of monitoring variables:

• water quality,
• hydrology,
• soils and sediments,
• vegetative health,
• habitat mapping,
• wildlife, and
• fisheries.

In addition to providing long-term data to look at status and trends, the monitoring program is designed to investigate cause and effect through hypothesis testing, which requires the establishment of paired reference areas. However, the increasing number and scale of CWPPRA projects has made it increasingly difficult to find adequate reference areas and to evaluate individual project effectiveness. As a result, a new monitoring program — the Coast-wide Reference Monitoring System (CRMS) — will provide a means of evaluating the effectiveness of the restoration on the entire coastal ecosystem as well as those areas affected by individual projects. A network or "pool" of reference sites that span the range of habitat variability from disturbed to pristine will be selected. Restoration projects will then be compared with a suite of reference sites to look at habitat change trajectories over time. This will allow for both project-specific evaluations and cumulative evaluations on both a hydrologic-basin and coast-wide level.
> Return to top

Adaptive Management

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges to restoration practitioners lies in the inherent uncertainty of how well a restoration effort will work. As a result, more and more projects are being designed and implemented in an adaptive management framework. The concept of adaptive management was developed specifically to provide a framework for decision-making to help reduce uncertainty. The principles of adaptive management can be applied at various scales and using various strategies. The most important element is to learn from the project. In fact adaptive management has been called "learning by doing." Uncertainties are identified and acknowledged during the planning phase and steps are taken to deal with these uncertainties. This framework provides an important feedback loop and can be used to improve restoration success (Figure 4; see also Adaptive Management).

Figure 4. Applying the continual evaluation process of adaptive management leads to cost-effective, successful restoration projects.

Innovative measures that can be taken to reduce scientific uncertainty may include:

• incremental project implementation,
• experimental studies in subareas of the restoration site,
• projects run in parallel that differ in one or more conditions, and
• implementation of full projects with the plan to evaluate the effectiveness of a restoration technique.

Some very large projects, such as the restoration of the Florida Everglades and the CWPPRA program in Louisiana (url) , have embraced the adaptive management approach. The Everglades program has not been implemented as yet, but planners are adapting project designs using results of extensive modeling studies of hydrology to guide restoration planning. The program will use feedback from an extensive, long-term monitoring program to guide restoration, as well as to correct their conceptual model of the system.

Data generated from the CWPPRA program monitoring approach are used not only to evaluate the effectiveness of the specific project, but also to provide feedback necessary to make active management decisions. To assess the success of over a hundred projects, a scientific team meets annually to evaluate a selected subset of the projects. The lessons learned are incorporated into revisions and the development of new project plans. This program benefits from the following:

• a clear understanding of factors that control marsh development based on decades of research,
• the ability to conduct experiments using untested technologies,
• a strong monitoring program, and
• a framework for evaluating the results and incorporating them into existing projects and future project plans (Figure 5).

Smaller project examples include those such as the tidal marsh restoration in Coos Bay, Oregon, the model marsh in the Tijuana Estuary, California, and eelgrass restoration at the Clinton ferry terminal in Puget Sound, Washington. In Coos Bay, restoration of the Kunz marsh (20 acres) was set up to provide information on what elevations are best for marsh development. Here, prior to removal of dikes surrounding former tidal marshes, four areas within the marsh were graded to different elevations (Figure 6). Colonization of the areas is being allowed to proceed naturally following dike removal. The information gained through monitoring will allow future projects to be built to maximize the rate and pattern of marsh development through manipulation of elevation.

Adaptive restoration is a concept being put into action in the Tijuana Estuary in California (www.tijuanaestuary.com). The Tijuana Estuary Restoration Project is being conducted in modules. The first module, called the Model Marsh, is a 20-acre portion of the 500-acre project area that is being restored using an experimental design. Lessons learned from this first area will be applied to restoration of the next module. Further refinement will be accomplished in the restoration of successive modules (Figure 8).

Figure 7. Glass blocks installed in the walkway at the Clinton Ferry Terminal to decrease the shadow cast by the pier and allow more light through to eelgrass. Courtesy: Battelle.

At the ferry terminal in Clinton, Washington eelgrass was restored in areas that were disturbed by ferry terminal construction and ferryboat operations. An initial 2-year research effort determined the various reasons why eelgrass was absent in some areas; however, reasons were not as obvious for other areas. Because of these uncertainties, the plots were given a relative score indicating low, moderate, or high probability of success. Then monitoring was set up to assess the progress of eelgrass development and to evaluate factors contributing to success or failure. In addition, eelgrass was planted under the terminal in an area where glass blocks in the overhead walkway were installed to pass light to support eelgrass (Figure 7). The effectiveness of this method was evaluated and used along with information from other plots to help plan eelgrass restoration near other terminals in Puget Sound.

Lessons learned from experimental manipulations at the Clinton Ferry Terminal can be applied to increase the effectiveness of projects elsewhere. The results of the work are presented annually and discussed with resource agency scientists, and modifications are made in both the approach to restoration and to the metrics used to evaluate success. For example, project researchers recently realized that total shoot abundance (relative to eelgrass lost from terminal reconstruction) was a better measure of the project's goal of no net loss than was mean shoot density. Similar to projects in Louisiana, but on a much smaller scale, this program benefits from a focused research program, a monitoring program, and a management framework.
> Return to top

Conclusion

Good monitoring practices and adaptive management are an integral part of coastal restoration projects. A monitoring framework can help to ensure that the main components necessary for an effective monitoring plan are employed. Pre-restoration monitoring is important to establish baseline conditions and to identify areas where contaminants might be of concern. Standard monitoring protocols help to ensure that consistent monitoring methods are used. Functional assessments are being applied to determine whether restoration projects are providing the intended function. Adaptive management provides a framework for addressing uncertainty, improving decision-making, and continually evaluating project success. Devoting sufficient project resources to the design and implementation of these important restoration components will help ensure that project goals and objectives are met.
> Return to top

References

Commencement Bay Natural Resource Trustees. 2000. Commencement Bay Natural Resource Damage Assessment Restoration Monitoring Plan. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of the Interior, and the State of Washington. Seattle, WA. http://www.darcnw.noaa.gov/restover.htm.

Craft, C., S. Broome, and C. Campbell. 2002. "Fifteen Years of Vegetation and Soil Development after Brackish-Water Marsh Creation." Restoration Ecology. Volume 10, Number 2. Pages 248 to 258.

Diefenderfer, H.L., and J.A. Ward. 2002. Analysis of potential downstream contamination resulting from dike removal for restoration: Willapa River estuary, Washington. Battelle Pacific Northwest Division. Sequim, WA.

Louisiana Coastal Wetlands Conservation and Restoration Task Force and Wetlands Conservation and Restoration Authority. 1998. Coast 2050: Toward a sustainable coastal Louisiana. Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Baton Rouge, LA.

Reed, B., and others. 2002. Regional kelp restoration project: Restoration and monitoring protocol. California CoastKeeper Alliance. Santa Monica, CA.

Short, F.T., and others. 2002. SeagrassNet manual for scientific monitoring of seagrass habitat. Northern Fisheries Centre. Cairns, Australia.

Southard, J.A., and others. 2003. Habitat mitigation monitoring at the Clinton ferry terminal, Whidbey Island: Annual report number 6. Battelle Marine Sciences Laboratory. Sequim, WA.

Steyer, G.D., and D.W. Llewellyn. 2000. "Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act: a Programmatic Application of Adaptive Management." Ecological Engineering. Volume 15, Numbers 3-4. Pages 385 to 395. http://www.elsevier.nl.

Steyer, G.D., and others. 2002. "A proposed Coast-wide Reference Monitoring System for Evaluating Wetland Restoration Trajectories in Louisiana." Journal of Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. Volume 81, Pages 107 to 117.

Steyer, G.D., and others. 1995. Quality management plan for Coastal Wetlands Planning Protection, and Restoration Act monitoring program. Open-file series. Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Baton Rouge, LA. http://www.lacoast.gov/cwppra/reports/monitoringplan/qaqcpub.frt.htm.

Sturdevant, A., and C.B. Craft. 2002. Baseline ecological characterization of an estuarine marsh restoration site and reference marshes along Woodbridge River, NJ. School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University. Bloomington, Indiana.

Thom, R.M. 1997. "System-Development Matrix for Adaptive Management of Coastal Ecosystem Restoration Projects." Ecological Engineering. Volume 8. Pages 219 to 232.

Thom, R.M. 2000. "Adaptive Management of Coastal Ecosystem Restoration Projects." Ecological Engineering. Volume 15, Numbers 3-4. Pages 365 to 372. http://www.elsevier.nl.

Thom, R.M., and K.F. Wellman. 1996. Planning Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring Programs. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers IWR Report 96-R-23.

Walters, C. J. 1986. Adaptive Management of Renewable Resources. McGraw-Hill. New York, NY.

Additional information is available in:

Borde, A.B., and others. 2003. National Review of Successful and Innovative Restoration Projects. Prepared for NOAA Coastal Services Center, by Battelle Marine Sciences Laboratory. Sequim, WA.

And

Diefenderfer, H.L. and R.M. Thom. 2003. Systematic Approach to Coastal Ecosystem Restoration. Prepared for: NOAA Coastal Services Center, by Battelle Marine Sciences Laboratory. Sequim, WA.
> Return to top