Approach
This approach acknowledges that traditional ecological restoration of wetlands may not be feasible or practical in light of overwhelming impacts from climate change and other threats. However, certain actions can be taken to control the trajectory of change in wetlands that enable them to retain vital wetland functions. The core tenets are to identify the wetland values to be maintained (particularly soil stabilization, storm and floodwater storage, water quality protection, and groundwater recharge), and advocate for the protection of all wetlands, even those that support few native species.
Tactics
- Maintain and establish wetland species that secure soils from erosion, even under high streamflow rates and flooding. Favor ‘workhorse species’ that hold the substrate well.
- Limit the dominance of species that are maladapted to projected future conditions to ensure long-term vegetative cover.
- Maximize cover and diversity of native wetland species in sites that are undergoing conversion. For example, in hardwood swamps where ash trees are anticipated to die due to emerald ash borer, facilitate conversion to shrub-carr by planting native...
Strategy
Strategy Text
This strategy seeks to enable transitions of communities to new desirable states through shifts in plant species composition while maintaining or producing desired wetland functions. Climate change may drive major alterations in wetland plant community composition and net primary productivity, as well as geographic shifts of some wetland types. Climate parameters are changing at a rapid and unprecedented pace, setting up conditions where local plants may no longer be ideally suited to local conditions. Habitat fragmentation and isolation further reduce the fitness and adaptive capacity of plant populations by causing reduced gene flow and inbreeding recession. For native wetland species that are already rare, these threats may render populations vulnerable to extirpation or extinction, forcing consideration of drastic measures such as assisted migration. Managers may determine that resisting such threats and changes is not feasible at some sites, and that managing for a range of acceptable trajectories is more practicable; monitoring outcomes and periodically re-evaluating restoration targets is essential when uncertainty is high.