Recent calls for ocean planning envision informed management of social and ecological systems to sustain delivery of ecosystem services to people. However, until now, no coastal and marine planning ...process has applied an ecosystem-services framework to understand how human activities affect the flow of benefits, to create scenarios, and to design a management plan. We developed models that quantify services provided by corals, mangroves, and seagrasses. We used these models within an extensive engagement process to design a national spatial plan for Belizeâs coastal zone. Through iteration of modeling and stakeholder engagement, we developed a preferred plan, currently under formal consideration by the Belizean government. Our results suggest that the preferred plan will lead to greater returns from coastal protection and tourism than outcomes from scenarios oriented toward achieving either conservation or development goals. The plan will also reduce impacts to coastal habitat and increase revenues from lobster fishing relative to current management. By accounting for spatial variation in the impacts of coastal and ocean activities on benefits that ecosystems provide to people, our models allowed stakeholders and policymakers to refine zones of human use. The final version of the preferred plan improved expected coastal protection by >25% and more than doubled the revenue from fishing, compared with earlier versions based on stakeholder preferences alone. Including outcomes in terms of ecosystem-service supply and value allowed for explicit consideration of multiple benefits from oceans and coasts that typically are evaluated separately in management decisions.
Significance Oceans and coasts provide people with diverse benefits, from fisheries that sustain lives and livelihoods to recreational opportunities that generate tourism. However, translating appreciation of these benefits into changes in management and policy is not trivial. We report on a ground-breaking effort to use ecosystem-service values and models within a coastal planning process. By accounting for spatial variation in the influence of human activities on services, our results allowed stakeholders and policymakers to refine zones of human use, reduce risk to ecosystems, and enhance delivery of multiple ocean and coastal benefits. Application of our approaches and tools will enable planners worldwide to bring ecosystem-service science to bear on real-world decisions, thus directing actions that protect ecosystems and their benefits for people.
Coastal protection of communities and property using "green infrastructure" approaches is gaining popularity as the science and practice improve. Guidance is limited for decision makers interested in ...taking action to protect shorelines. Here, we offer practical guidance for decision makers interested in moving beyond generalities for coastal protection strategies. We present three case examples from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and in Belize, each posing different questions, and thus using different approaches, to evaluate whether green infrastructure strategies could be useful. For basic questions about where habitat-based approaches are likely to add value, index-based models are useful in identifying priority areas for habitat protection or restoration. Process-based models are best used to examine strategies where the interest is in the likely magnitude of value from gray and green infrastructure approaches. Process-based models in coastal Texas demonstrate that marsh habitats are spatially variable in their ability to reduce the height and costs of levees necessary to protect property from storms and sea-level rise. Such spatial variation in the value of green infrastructure can be readily incorporated in a variety of decisions, allowing action now, before more science and lessons from applications emerge.
Vegetation can protect communities by reducing nearshore wave height and altering sediment transport processes. However, quantitative approaches for evaluating the coastal protection services, or ...benefits, supplied by vegetation to people in a wide range of coastal environments are lacking. To begin to fill this knowledge gap, we propose an integrated modeling approach for quantifying how vegetation modifies nearshore processes—including the attenuation of wave height, mean and total water level—and reduces shoreline erosion during storms. We apply the model to idealized seagrass‐sand and mangrove‐mud cases, and illustrate its potential by quantifying how those habitats reduce water levels and sediment loss beyond what would be observed in the absence of vegetation. The integrated modeling approach provides an efficient way to quantify the coastal protection services supplied by vegetation and highlights specific research needs for improved representations of the ways in which vegetation modifies wave‐induced processes.
Key Points:
A novel modeling approach is used to predict coastal protection by vegetation
Vegetation has the potential to reduce water levels and erosion during storms
Drag coefficient uncertainty yields large variability in protection estimates
A new sensor that measures the vertical profile of nearbed sediment concentration is described. The conductivity-based sensor is composed of eight electrode pairs separated in the vertical by 2.5 10 ...super(-3) m. Electrode pairs are sampled at 16 Hz, with higher rates achievable. Each electrode pair response is linear over the range of conductivity tested from 0.2 to 0.65 mS cm super(-1) that exceeds the range of conductivity values corresponding to sediment-water mixtures from clear water to the packed bed limit of 0.65 m super(3) m super(-3). A laboratory test over a planar sloping beach indicates the capability of the sensor to simultaneously quantify sediment concentration profiles from roughly 0.01 m below to 0.1 m above the at-rest bed. The data indicate that the upper few millimeters of the bed are highly mobile and that bed dilation and sediment mobility vary considerably over a swash cycle.
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