Primary Task Objective:
Assess the current ecological status of wetlands, and characterize natural and anthropogenic factors impacting wetlands health and restoration.
Description: Over 190 habitat restoration projects have been completed or initiated in Tampa Bay in the last 20 years (excluding mitigation projects). The primary restoration goal of the CCMP is to restore the historic balance of coastal habitats in Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay houses four aquatic preserves managed by the FDEP. These preserves constitute the most ecologically important public owned lands with the highest priority for restoration. Monitoring and research on wetlands in Tampa Bay has largely focused on documentation of wetlands loss and site-specific wetlands mitigation (i.e. restoration) to compensate for acute, permitted losses to development. There has been relatively little process-based wetlands research, very little long-term monitoring, and no holistic or integrated wetlands research or monitoring. In addition to loss and degradation, wetlands in Tampa Bay have been undergoing a slow and barely perceptible conversion from a mixture of salt marshes and mangroves to a more mangrove-dominated estuary overall.
Characterizing the array of factors affecting wetland type, status, function, and long-term management and restoration (as opposed to short-term mitigation) requires an integrated approach of the physical and biological sciences, and a focus on the position of wetlands in the ecosystem as the interface between the watershed and the bay. Assessing the impacts of groundwater seepage, freshwater inflow, climatic variation, sea level rise, and urbanization provides basic knowledge of the processes affecting wetlands. Quantifying and modeling the relations between wetland status and environmental impacts (both natural and anthropogenic) will provide the basis for understanding and predicting future wetland changes.
The USGS will partner with the FDEP, Aquatic Preserve Scientists, SWFWMD, Counties, and University of Louisiana-Lafayette to assess the ecological status of wetlands, perform restoration experiments aimed at identifying natural and anthropogenic factors impacting restoration, and quantify the success of restoration efforts. Through partnership with the FDEP, USGS researchers will use current and ongoing restoration activities in the Aquatic Preserves as a natural laboratory for restoration research. Wetland experiments and monitoring will be coordinated with mapping, water and sediment quality, and history and pre-history tasks to examine specific issues affecting wetlands and their restoration including: elevation, sea-level rise, contaminated sediments, urbanization impacts, groundwater and surface water withdrawal and flow, circulation, and the effectiveness of wetlands as nurseries for fish.
Subtask Strategic Objectives: Seven subtask strategic objectives address three focus areas of research:
- facilitating wetland restoration through experimentation and modeling,
- assessing the current ecological status of existing wetlands, and
- identifying and modeling urban impacts to wetlands. (Note, all objectives below address Critical Science Gaps IVA and IVC above).
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