Incorporating Climate-Smart Adaptive Strategies into Wetlands Recovery in Coastal Southern California

Despite the existence of high quality scientific information, there are significant barriers to the application of available tools to real-world decisions regarding how to best restore and manage coastal wetlands in consideration of climate change effects. These barriers derive from the difficulty in determining the most appropriate restoration or management prescription in light of site-specific habitat conditions, constraints, and expected future conditions.

Wetlands along the southern California coast vary widely in terms of their size, habitat composition, and forcing functions. For example, the balance between fluvial and littoral processes can affect the size, extent, and frequency of tidal inlet closures. This in turn affects habitat composition and influences appropriate management actions. This heterogeneity along the coast combined with the variety of infrastructure constraints and other anthropogenic stressors makes it difficult for managers to know which tools to use and how to best apply them to inform restoration and management for their specific circumstance.

The goal of this project is to develop a method for managers to assess climate change-associated vulnerabilities at specific wetland locations by using the most appropriate tools to develop restoration and management priorities. This will be done by defining major coastal archetypes based on wetland setting, form, and composition. Existing models and tools will be coupled with specific archetypes in consideration of major anthropogenic constraints to help inform the decision making process. With an understanding of the vulnerabilities of wetland ecosystems, climate-smart adaptation strategies and a decision-support tool to guide restoration project prioritization and design will then be developed.