Ecological engineering group 10 presentation

Ecological engineering group 10 presentation

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  Determining Restoration Success in Louisiana BE4240 Sophia Della Rocca Lauren Todd Andrew Lin Will Hynes Colin Richter 1
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  Introduction ● Louisiana haslost over 1,800 square miles of land ● More and more land will be lossed in the future ● Loss of land= loss of shore lines= domino effect ● We focused on the Isles Dernières Barrier Island Wildlife Refuge 2
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  Rationale ● The Islandsin Terrebonne Bay are extremely important ● The problem: Ecological and Economic impacts ● Objectives ● Possible solutions 3
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  Approach Restoration for Raccoonand Whiskey Islands ● Marsh elevation was built higher than recommended to slow erosion on Raccoon Island ● More ecologically complex design that incorporated tidal inflows with canals to encourage natural hydrologic ecology on Whiskey Island 4
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  Approach ● Comparison of2 salt marsh restoration sites on 2 Louisiana Barrier Islands ○ Whiskey and Raccoon Islands ● 3 year study to evaluate success of restoration ○ Success was defined as the sites ability to support ecological processes 5
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  Methods ● Sand wasexcavated from nearby sand bars to increase elevation of the islands Dredging ● Isles Dernieres Barrier Wildlife Refuge in Terrebonne Bay, Louisiana Study Site ● 129 ha on Whiskey (0.8m) and 24 ha on Raccoon (1.1 m) Restoration 6
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  Methods ● Usedto Evaluate species presence with recording units that were mounted on the Islands Acoustic Monitoring Habitat Monitoring ● 1 meter squared plot was analyzed on each Island over the three year period and the % ground cover per plant species was determined 7
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  ● Implementation ● Management ●Research Costs 8
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  Funding ● National CoastalWetlands Conservation ● National Coastal Resilience Fund ● EPA through Clean Water Act ● Educating the public 9
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  Relevant Design Equations:Erosion ● Sediment Transport Equations and Shields Diagram ○ Dimensionless Shear Stress ○ Actual Shear Stress ○ Shear Velocity Reynolds Number ○ Experimental Curve Value If the actual shear stress is larger than the dimensionless shear stress, sediment transport can be expected. 10
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  Results and Discussion Figure 1:Comparison of treatment types on Whiskey and Raccoon islands in the Isles Dernieres Wildlife Refuge, Terrebonne Bay, Louisiana, 2016–2018. A) Reference site, Whiskey; B) Restoration site, Whiskey; C) Reference site, Raccoon; D) Restoration site, Raccoon. 11
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  Table 1: Comparisonof mean species richness and standard deviation for acoustic monitoring via ARUs and point counts for each treatment type (restoration [Res], reference [Ref], and mean [Av]) for Whiskey and Raccoon islands 12
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  Table 2: Resultsfrom generalized linear models to evaluate effects of habitat covariates on avian species richness derived from the passive acoustic sampling of breeding birds in resorted and reference habitats on Whiskey Island 13
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  Table 3: Resultsfrom generalized linear models to evaluate effects of habitat covariates on avian species richness derived from point counts of breeding birds in restored and reference habitats on both Whiskey and Racoon Islands 14
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  Table 4: Resultsfrom intercept-only and highest ranked occupancy models to evaluate effect of habitat covariates on the Ammospiza maritima and Ixobrychus exilis occupancy on restoration and reference sites on Whiskey Island from 2016-2018 15
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  Conclusion ● Restoration wassuccessful ● Ideas to combat coastline erosion ○ Sand dunes ○ Pulsating waves ○ Vegetation control ● Sand dunes ○ Acts as a buffer to the coastline ● Pulsating Waves ○ Keeps the amount of erosion to a minimal ● Vegetation control ○ Longer roots tend to anchor the coastline better 16
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  Conclusion ● Principle ofecology; ○ Limit number of factors ○ All components are interconnected ● Limit number of factors ○ Only touch a limited amount of variables each time ● All components are interconnected ○ Everything in nature affects one another 17
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  Conclusion ● Self design ○Team cannot keep up with all the variable change affects ○ Naturally occurring ○ Helps maintain the balance in nature ○ Change one variable = nature integrates it and maintain homeostasis 18
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  References Barnes, Stephen, etal. "Economic evaluation of coastal land loss in Louisiana." (2015). Barnes, S. R., and Stephanie Virgets. "Regional impacts of coastal land loss and Louisiana’s opportunity for growth." LSU EJ Ourso College of Business Economics and Policy Research Group, Environmental Defense Fund (2017). Barbier, Edward B., et al. "The value of estuarine and coastal ecosystem services." Ecological monographs 81.2 (2011): 169-193. Byerly, Paige A., et al. "Effects of barrier island salt marsh restoration on marsh bird occurrence in the northern Gulf of Mexico." Restoration Ecology 28.6 (2020): 1610-1620. Cretini, Kari F., et al. "Development and use of a floristic quality index for coastal Louisiana marshes." Environmental monitoring and assessment 184.4 (2012): 2389-2403. Deegan, L. A., H. M. Kennedy, and R. Costanza. "Factors contributing to marsh land loss in Louisiana's coastal zone." Developments in Environmental Modelling. Vol. 5. Elsevier, 1983. 915- 919. Duarte, Carlos M., et al. "The role of coastal plant communities for climate change mitigation and adaptation." Nature Climate Change 3.11 (2013): 961-968. 19
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  References Khalil, Syed M.,et al. "Overview of coastal restoration in Louisiana." Shore & Beach 79.3 (2011): 4- 11. Liu, Haoran, Kehui Xu, and Carol Wilson. "Sediment infilling and geomorphological change of a mud-capped Raccoon Island dredge pit near Ship Shoal of Louisiana shelf." Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 245 (2020): 106979.89-2403. Prabhakaran, Sudesh, Vikneswaran Nair, and Sridar Ramachandran. "Community participation in mitigating marine waste to reduce climatic change in tourism destinations." Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes (2016). Temmink, Ralph JM, et al. "Mimicry of emergent traits amplifies coastal restoration success." Nature communications 11.1 (2020): 1-9. Turner, R. Eugene, and Yu Mo. "Salt Marsh Elevation Limit Determined after Subsidence from Hydrologic Change and Hydrocarbon Extraction." Remote Sensing 13.1 (2021): 49. Sparks, Eric L., et al. "Cost-effectiveness of two small-scale salt marsh restoration designs." Ecological Engineering 53 (2013): 250-256. Wang, Faming, et al. "Plant biomass and rates of carbon dioxide uptake are enhanced by successful restoration of tidal connectivity in salt marshes." Science of the Total Environment 750 (2021): 20
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  QUESTIONS? 21