Addressing climate change and development pressures in an urban estuary through habitat restoration planning

Abstract

Native habitats in Florida face dual pressures at the land-sea interface from urban development and sea-level rise. To address these pressures, restoration practitioners require robust tools that identify reasonable goals given historical land use trends, current status of native habitats, and anticipated future impacts from coastal stressors. A restoration framework for native habitats was created for the Tampa Bay watershed that identifies current opportunities and establishes short-term (2030) targets and long-term (2050) goals. The approach was informed through a three-decade habitat change analysis and over 40 years of habitat restoration projects in the region. Although significant gains in subtidal habitats have been observed, expansion of mangroves into salt marshes and loss of native upland habitats to development highlights the need to target these locations for restoration. The long-term loss of potentially restorable lands to both coastal and upland development further underscores the diminishing restoration opportunities in the watershed. The established targets and goals identified habitats to maintain at their present level (e.g., mangroves) and those that require additional progress (e.g., oyster bars) based on past trends and an expected level of effort given the restoration history of the region. The new approach also accounts for the future effects of sea-level rise, climate change, and watershed development by prioritizing native coastal habitats relative to subtidal or upland areas. Maps were created to identify the restoration opportunities where practitioners could focus efforts to achieve the targets and goals, with methods for repeatable analyses also available using an open source workflow.