Information preferences for the evaluation of coastal development impacts on ecosystem services: A multi-criteria assessment in the Australian context

Socio-economic or environmental benefits from pondscapes? Deriving stakeholder preferences using analytic hierarchy process and compositional data analysis

Ponds occupy a large share of standing water worldwide and play an important role in providing various ecosystem services. There are concerted efforts of the European Union either to create new ponds, or to restore and preserve existing ponds as nature-based solutions to provide benefits to ecosystem and human well-being. As part of the EU PONDERFUL project, selected pondscapes (i.e. landscapes of ponds) in eight different countries - hereafter "demo-sites", are studied to comprehensively understand their characteristics and their efficiency to provide ecosystem services. In addition, the needs and knowledge of stakeholders who own, work, research, or benefit from the pondscapes are also important, because of their capabilities to create, manage and develop the pondscapes. Therefore, we established connection with stakeholders to study their preferences and visions on the pondscapes. Using the analytic hierarchy process, this study shows that in general stakeholders in the European and Turkish demo-sites prefer environmental benefits to economic benefits, while stakeholders in the Uruguayan demo-sites rank the economic benefits higher. More specifically, in the European and Turkish demo-sites, the biodiversity benefits, i.e. life-cycle maintenance, habitat and gene pool protection, receive the highest ranking among all groups. On the other hand, stakeholders at the Uruguayan demo-sites rank provisioning benefits as the most important, because many ponds in Uruguayan demo-sites are being used for agricultural purposes. Understanding those preferences helps policy makers to address the needs of stakeholders more correctly, when considering any action or policy for the pondscapes.

Assessing the Ecosystem Health of Coastal Wetland Vegetation (Suaeda salsa) Using the Pressure State Response Model, a Case of the Liao River Estuary in China

Suaeda salsa (S. salsa) is an important ecological barrier and tourism resource in coastal wetland resources, and assessing changes in its health is beneficial for protecting the ecological health of wetlands and increasing finances. The aim was to explore improvements in the degradation of S. salsa communities in the Liao River Estuary National Nature Reserve since a wetland restoration project was carried out in Panjin, Liaoning Province, China, in 2015. In this study, landscape changes in the reserve were assessed based on Sentinel-2 images classification results from 2016 to 2019. A pressure-state-response framework was constructed to assess the annual degradation of S. salsa communities within the wetlands. The assessment results show that the area of S. salsa communities and water bodies decreased annually from 2016 to 2019, and the increased degradation indicators indicate a state of continued degradation. The area of types such as aquaculture ponds and Phragmites australis communities did not change much, while the estuarine mudflats increased year by year. The causes of S. salsa community degradation include anthropogenic impacts from abandoned aquaculture ponds and sluice control systems but also natural impacts from changes in the tidal amplitude and soil properties of the mudflats. The results also indicate that the living conditions of S. salsa in the Liao River estuary wetlands are poor and that anthropogenic disturbance is necessary to restore the original vegetation abundance.

Developing Harvest Strategies to Achieve Ecological, Economic and Social Sustainability in Multi-Sector Fisheries

Ecosystem based fisheries management (EBFM) provides a framework to achieve ecological, economic and social sustainability in fisheries. However, developing harvest strategies to achieve these multiple objectives is complex. This is even more so in multi-sector multi-species fisheries. In our study, we develop such harvest strategies for the multi-species Coral Reef Fin Fish Fishery (CRFFF) operating in the waters of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The fishery includes recreational, charter and commercial sectors, and is a provider of regional employment and supplier of seafood to both local and export markets. We convened a series of stakeholder workshops and conducted surveys to identify stakeholder objectives and priorities, as well as potential harvest strategy frameworks for the fishery. These potential harvest strategies were assessed against the objectives using a further qualitative impact survey. The analysis identified which frameworks were preferred by different stakeholder groups and why, taking into account the different objective priorities and tradeoffs in outcomes. The new feature of the work was to qualitatively determine which harvest strategies are perceived to best address triple bottom line objectives. The approach is therefore potentially applicable in other complex fisheries developing harvest strategies which, by design, strive to achieve ecological, economic and social sustainability.

Predictors of coastal stakeholders' knowledge about seawater desalination impacts on marine ecosystems

This study investigates variables that shape coastal stakeholders' knowledge about marine ecosystems and impacts of seawater desalination. The influence of trans-situational and situation-specific variables on self-assessed and factual knowledge among coastal residents and commercial marine stakeholders. Data were collected using a questionnaire based survey administered to a random sample of coastal residents and commercial marine stakeholders in eight communities in central California. Knowledge of biological features was higher than knowledge of physical and chemical processes. Both trans-situational and situation-specific variables were significant predictors of knowledge, in particular gender, education, and ocean use patterns. TV and social media were the only information sources that correlated negatively with knowledge. Predictors for distinct types of knowledge were different and provide insights that could help target specific ocean literacy gaps. The study also finds that commercial marine stakeholders were more knowledgeable than other coastal residents. Having an economic stake in the marine environment appears to be a strong motivation to be more educated about the ocean.