Great Lakes coastal wetlands provide critical habitat for many species of birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, and provide essential spawning and nursery habitat for many fish species of ecologic and economic importance. Additionally, coastal wetlands trap, process, and retain nutrients and sediment. Unfortunately, half of the coastal wetland area that was present before European settlement has been converted to other land uses and many remaining wetlands are impacted by invasive species, fragmentation, nutrient loading, and hydrologic manipulation. Because of their ecological value and the extensive degradation that has occurred in coastal wetlands, interest in protection and restoration has increased dramatically in recent years.
While a number of large coastal wetland restoration projects have been initiated in the Great Lakes [e.g., Sensiba Wildlife Area Restoration (western Green Bay), Cat Island Ecosystem Restoration (southern Green Bay), Erie Marsh Preserve Restoration (western Lake Erie), Braddock Bay Restoration (southern Lake Ontario)], there remains little regional or basin-scale prioritization of restoration efforts. While single restoration projects may achieve their site-specific objectives, broader ecosystem restoration goals such as those articulated in Lakewide Management Plans or the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Action Plan will be exceedingly difficult to achieve without coordination and prioritization of restoration investments. Until very recently we lacked the data necessary for making systematic prioritization decisions for wetland protection and restoration in the Great Lakes. However, now that basin-wide coastal wetland monitoring data are available, development of a robust prioritization tool is possible. This type of decision support system will ensure the greatest return on restoration investments.
To aid wetland managers and other coastal resource decision-makers in systematically prioritizing coastal wetland protection and restoration, we propose the first comprehensive decision support system (DSS) for Great Lakes coastal wetlands. This DSS will make extensive use of data collected as part of a 5-year cycle, basin-wide coastal wetland monitoring program that our team is conducting. This project will focus on wetlands in western Lake Erie and southern Lake Huron, but our ultimate goal is to expand the system to other Great Lakes in the future. The DSS will use a suite of factors including current wetland condition, existing major impairments, relative value of ecosystem services in current vs. restored condition, restorability, land ownership, and vulnerability to exogenous drivers (e.g.,water levels, climate change, watershed land use). The DSS will be both a flexible software application transferable to other regions and a fully parameterized tool to aid resource managers in prioritizing protection and restoration of Lake Michigan wetlands.
