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Combining Economic and Ecological Indicators to Prioritize Salt Marsh Restoration Actions
Author(s) -
Johnston Robert J.,
Magnusson Gisele,
Mazzotta Marisa J.,
Opaluch James J.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8276.00403
Subject(s) - natural resource , graduate research , library science , resource (disambiguation) , principal (computer security) , session (web analytics) , salt lake , agriculture , forester , sociology , political science , geography , archaeology , forestry , business , computer science , computer network , paleontology , structural basin , advertising , law , biology , operating system
Restoration of damaged or degraded ecosystems often represents an important component of environmental management (National Research Council). However, funds are typically insufficient to restore all candidate sites. This paper summarizes an ecological-economic model designed to assist managers in prioritizing salt marsh restoration actions. The model integrates information concerning both the production (supply) and value (demand) of wetland habitat functions. Although the project focuses on salt marshes in Narragansett Bay (RI), the approach is more generally applicable to assessing habitat restoration actions. Ecological production relationships determine links between salt marsh attributes and associated habitat functions. Although there is an extensive ecological literature on these relationships, considerable judgment is needed to interpret the literature in order to quantify how restoration actions would contribute to habitat for a range of species (e.g., Burdick et al., Able and Hagan, Wigand et al.). For this reason, we developed a survey of wetlands professionals to identify a consensus of expert opinion on production relationships among physical marsh attributes and particular habitat or ecological functions. While habitat functions are determined by ecological (physical) relationships, social values for these functions are determined by