Estuary Restoration Act: Case Studies

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Working with Partners to Share Restoration Information
Assessing Habitat Trends to Prioritize Restoration Activities

The ERA makes restoring our nation's estuaries a top priority.

CASE STUDY: Working with Partners to Share Restoration Information

The primary purpose of the National Estuaries Restoration Inventory (NERI) is to improve the long-term effectiveness of restoration projects. It provides the restoration community with the information it needs to evaluate the relative success of different restoration approaches. This kind of data is valuable for local and regional restoration programs, which often lack sufficient resources to track the results of their efforts.

NOAA is working with the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment to assemble an inventory of regional restoration projects using NERI. With seed money and technical support from NOAA, the council has developed a regional Web site that provides detailed information about local restoration projects. As part of NERI, the Gulf of Maine inventory will benefit from restoration project information and will include query capabilities, dynamic project profiles, and an interactive mapping application. The Gulf of Maine Council will be able to flag regional projects in the national inventory, so that information on these projects can be accessed and queried from the Gulf of Maine Web site. At the same time, NOAA is able to provide project information from the Gulf of Maine region to a national audience, along with information on other restoration projects across the nation. Visit the Gulf of Maine Council Web site at: http://www.gulfofmaine.org/default.asp

NOAA is also partnering with other federal agency programs, and is working towards including other state and local programs, to populate NERI with additional project information. The national inventory is accessible for on-line project entry and data queries. Visit: https://neri.noaa.gov/

For more information on working with NOAA to incorporate restoration projects into NERI, or to develop a NERI-integrated state or regional project inventory, contact:

Marti McGuire
e-mail: Marti.McGuire@noaa.gov

The health of tidal estuaries "downstream" depends on the restoration of upstream habitats.

CASE STUDY: Assessing Habitat Trends to Prioritize Restoration Activities

Healthy estuaries depend on a complex mix of habitats, including various types of wetlands, oyster reefs, submerged aquatic vegetation, and even upstream riparian forests. As these habitats are lost or degraded, the individual functions that each provides within the local ecosystem are also lost. Over the last century, millions of acres of critical habitats have been destroyed. But how much has been lost? To successfully restore our nation’s estuaries, we must identify not only the total area and geographic extent of each type of estuarine habitat existing today, but also (to the extent feasible) the historic distribution and extent of estuarine habitats.

NOAA is currently working on a preliminary assessment of the current status and historical and recent loss trends for several types of coastal habitats. This information will be critical for guiding strategic restoration planning and policy-making at the national level, and will help local groups target limited resources toward protection and restoration of the most threatened habitats in their regions. Results of the study are expected in Fall 2005.

For more information, contact:

Kristin Rusello
e-mail: Kristin.Rusello@noaa.gov

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