elkhorn slough tidal marsh plan: possible lessons from the bay area wetland ecosystem goals project...

Elkhorn Slough Tidal Marsh Plan:

Possible Lessons from the Bay Area Wetland Ecosystem

Goals Project

Joshua N. CollinsSan Francisco Estuary Institute

josh@sfei.org

Serious Work & Abundant Help

Carl Wilcox, Ca Dept. of Fish and Game

Peggy Olofson, SF Bay Water Board

Mike Monroe, EPA Region 9

Basic Tenets

There will be as much change in the future as there was in the past.

The question is what do we need?

The answer keeps changing.

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Basic Tenets

The answer keeps changing.

All natural resources are actively managed or passively impacted by people to some extent.

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Management priorities change.

Basic Tenets

The answer keeps changing.

Goals and expectations need to be adjusted for new information about changing conditions.

Basic Tenets

The answer keeps changing.

The effects of people may have become so pervasive that the past is no longer the key to the future.

Basic Tenets

Landscapes are dynamic; the uncertainty needs to be managed.

The answer keeps changing.

Basic Tenets

Call it a project, but it’s really a program.

The product is not a plan, it’s a process.

Basic Tenets

Ecosystem management is an ongoing public debate based on enough empirical data to provide adequate certainty about management effects.

The product is not a plan, it’s a process.

Basic Tenets

Technical questions that are too large to answer now and too important not to ever answer must be addressed through special studies.

The product is not a plan, it’s a process.

Basic Tenets

Ecosystems don’t care; people do.

Knowledgeable people care, and caring people can change the world. Eco-system management is Ego-system management.

Basic Tenets

Get Real

Decide what to change and how to measure progress (define the x-axis). Design a process for converting data into management response, and test the process with real data.

Basic Questions

What do we need to do?

“Protect the best; restore the rest!”

The best and rest of what? What are the tradeoffs? What are the most important eco-services and how can they be managed?

Basic Questions

How do we measure progress?

Inventory habitats, monitor their selected services (compare management actions to ambient conditions), and survey public sentiment.

Basic Questions

How do we proceed?

4 Steps to Ecosystem Management

4 Steps toEcosystem Management

Landscape restoration guidelines should address the ideal form, structure, distribution, and associations of major habitat types, with reference to their interactions and formative processes.

1. Develop principles and guidelines.

4 Steps toEcosystem Management1. Develop principles and guidelines.

Landscape restoration guidelines should be based on quantitative studies of the effects of people and natural processes on historical habitat change.

4 Steps toEcosystem Management

1. Develop restoration guidelines.

2.Set quantitative habitat goals.

Make maps of possible future conditions based on the guidelines and existing management options.

4 Steps toEcosystem Management

1. Set regional habitat goals. 2. Set quantitative habitat goals.3. Adjust policies, programs, and

projects as tools to achieve the goals.

The process of governance must enable managers to change what they do.

4 Steps toEcosystem Management

1. Set regional habitat goals. 2. Set quantitative habitat goals.3. Adjust policies, programs, and projects

as tools to achieve the goals.4. Measure progress toward the goals

(and adjust the goals for new ideas).

Governance must be informed by a program of systematic observation and modeling.

How to Set Habitat Goals

Assemble a team of environmental managers, scientists, and engineers.

Scientists need to be mindful of budgets and schedules.

Managers need to give scientists time to think.

How to Set Habitat Goals

Define the scope of ecosystem goals.

Ecosystems have natural and social dimensions that vary between services and over time.

In this case, the tidal marsh problem of Elkhorn Slough is the center of the ecosystem of interest.

How to Set Habitat Goals

Define the scope of ecosystem goals.

These tidal marshes are embedded in watersheds – the linkages must be considered.

How to Set Habitat Goals

Understand the environmental past, the present, and change.

History can explain the present and help us forecast the future (maybe).History is common ground. The history of a place unites the people who live there.

How to Set Habitat Goals

Use everything anyone knows.

Consider what is known as fact, can be inferred from fact, or is mostly expert guesswork.

How to Set Habitat Goals

It’s OK to think ecologically.

Materials cycle and energy flows across jurisdictional lines, fence lines, and even watershed boundaries.Visualize processes that account for the problem that needs to be solved.

How to Set Habitat Goals

Make maps of the past, present, and needed future habitats.

Maps help us think well together about the land and the life it should support. Map more detail than you think you need.

How to ImplementStart planning for implementation

before the goals are set.

Focus on project performance in context of ambient status and trends. Begin technical review of projects at their conceptual design stage.

How to Implement

Report frequently to the public.

Interim products (even incomplete answers) keep people interested.Public involvement builds public support.

In summary …Develop principles and guidelines based on

historical patterns of landscape change.

In summary …Develop principles and guidelines based

historical patterns of landscape change.

Answer the question: how much of what habitats are needed where, and why?

In summary …

Consider linkages between selected habitats and their supporting processes.

Develop principles and guidelines based historical patterns of landscape change.

Answer the question: how much of what habitats are needed where, and why?

In summary …

Make a map of the answer(s), regardless of jurisdictional boundaries or property lines.

Consider linkages between selected habitats and their supporting processes.

Develop principles and guidelines based historical patterns of landscape change.

Answer the question: how much of what habitats are needed where, and why?

In summary …

Make a map of the answer(s), regardless of jurisdictional boundaries or property lines.

Turn public policies, programs, and projects into ways to achieve the goals.

Consider linkages between selected habitats and their supporting processes.

Develop principles and guidelines based historical patterns of landscape change.

Answer the question: how much of what habitats are needed where, and why?

Thinking about Elkhorn Slough Tidal Marshes

Marsh evolution depends on supplies of inorganic sediment. How have the supplies changed?

Thinking about Elkhorn Slough Tidal Marshes

Marsh evolution depends on supplies of inorganic sediment. How have the supplies changed?

Marsh evolution depends on depositional environments. How has hydrology changed?

Thinking about Elkhorn Slough Tidal Marshes

Marsh evolution depends on supplies of inorganic sediment. How have the supplies changed?

Marsh evolution depends on depositional environments. How has hydrology changed?

Marsh ecology depends on salinity regimes. How has salinity changed?

Thinking about Elkhorn Slough Tidal Marshes

Marsh evolution depends on supplies of inorganic sediment. How have the supplies changed?

Marsh evolution depends on depositional environments. How has hydrology changed?

Marsh ecology depends on salinity regimes. How has salinity changed?

Can changes be managed to improve conditions?

Think Big