Connecting stakeholder priorities and desired environmental attributes for wetland restoration using ecosystem services and a heat map analysis for communications

Abstract

Framing ecological restoration and monitoring goals from a human benefits perspective (i.e., ecosystem services) can help inform restoration planners, surrounding communities, and relevant stakeholders about the direct benefits they may obtain from a specific restoration project. We used a case study of tidal wetland restoration in the Tillamook River watershed in Oregon, USA, to demonstrate how to identify and integrate community stakeholders/beneficiaries and the environmental attributes they use to inform the design of and enhance environmental benefits from ecological restoration. Using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS) Scoping Tool, we quantify the types of ecosystem services of greatest common value to stakeholders/beneficiaries that lead to desired benefits that contribute to their well-being in the context of planned uses that can be incorporated into the restoration project. This case study identified priority stakeholders, beneficiaries, and environmental attributes of interest to inform restoration goal selection. This novel decision context application of the FEGS Scoping Tool also included an effort focused on how to communicate the connections between stakeholders, and the environmental attributes of greatest interest to them using heat maps.

Keywords: decision-making; ecosystem services; nature’s benefits; restoration; stakeholders; tidal wetlands.

FIGURE 1

Tillamook Bay and several recent TEP restoration sites. The Tillamook River Wetlands restoration site, on the southern end of the bay is shown in more detail on the right, which shows the restoration boundary, streams and ditches, tide gates, and culverts. Outside the restoration site, the western side is mostly farmland, managed forest to the south, and spruce swamp to the east and northeast across the Tillamook River (Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB), 2017).

FIGURE 2

Conceptual diagram of the steps used to apply the FEGS Scoping Tool and other analyses for the Tillamook River Wetlands Restoration site.

FIGURE 3

Beneficiary distribution for each stakeholder group; Utilities (local utility companies) were a stakeholder group that was considered to likely have no beneficiary interests at the site. (Reproduced from Hernandez et al., 2022).

FIGURE 4

Relative priority of stakeholders based on their scores for each weighted decision criterion.

FIGURE 5

Relative priority of beneficiaries affected by Tillamook River Wetlands Restoration, determined by the beneficiary roles of each stakeholder.

FIGURE 6

Relative prioritization of environmental attributes results from building a profile of suite of attributes that each beneficiary group cares about or needs. Beneficiary groups belonging to the same NESCS plus beneficiary class (e.g., Livestock Grazers, Aquaculturalists, Farmers, and Foresters collectively belong to the Agricultural beneficiary class) are grouped together in the legend.