Implementing coastal priority management areas and functional habitats

Session: Great Lakes Fish Habitat Priorities Development, Implementation, and Adaptive Management (2)

Scudder Mackey, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, [email protected]
Kelly Siman, University of Akron, [email protected]

Abstract

The Ohio Coastal Management Program has implemented several programs to provide data and modeling capability to more effectively manage Ohio’s Lake Erie shoreline. The Program is supporting ongoing nearshore and coastal monitoring and assessment work, the development of models to inform regulatory decision-making, and to evaluate the impact of proposed management and restoration actions along the shoreline. This includes the development of coastal and ecological resiliency tools to assist in the identification of Coastal Priority Management Areas (PMAs). These Coastal PMAs incorporate management actions within specific shoreline reaches that meet multiple coastal management goals and objectives that include a systematic consideration of functional habitats. Note that Coastal PMAs may be different than fishery PMAs, but where beneficial overlap occurs there are opportunities to invest in restoration and enhancement opportunities that create, maintain, and enhance functional habitats at multiple scales. With respect to project implementation, recent experience has shown that restoration project designs based on traditional design-life criteria are too expensive, overbuilt, and are not applicable to nature-based habitat restoration projects. There is a pressing need to develop new innovative approaches that incorporate an adaptive engineering approach for dynamic nature-based habitat restoration projects that do not rely on traditional engineering design