Leveraging a Landscape-Level Monitoring and Assessment Program for Developing Resilient Shorelines throughout the Laurentian Great Lakes

摘要: Traditionally, ecosystem monitoring, conservation, and restoration have been conducted in a piecemeal manner at the local scale without regional landscape context. However, scientifically driven conservation decisions benefit greatly when they are based on regionally determined benchmarks goals. Unfortunately, required data sets rarely exist for important ecosystems. Because of early recognition extreme ecological importance Laurentian Great Lakes coastal wetlands, extensive degradation that had already occurred, significant investments wetland research, protection, made recent decades continue today. Continued refined assessment condition trends, evaluation practices all essential to ensuring success these investments. To provide managers decision makers throughout basin with optimal tools needed make scientifically-based decisions, our team scientists developed standardized methods indicators used assessing condition. From perspective, scale, we established stratified random-site-selection process monitor birds, anurans, fish, macroinvertebrates, vegetation, physicochemical conditions wetlands US Canada. Monitoring approximately 200 per year began 2011 as Coastal Wetland Program. In this paper, describe development, delivery, expected results ongoing international, multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder, landscape-scale monitoring program case example successful application design.