EPA Research Partner Support Story: Technical support to identify and quantify ecosystem services

Partners: Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Partnership, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, Chesapeake Bay Program partners, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program
Challenge: Communicate potential social and economic benefits of ecosystem restoration projects
Resource: Technical support to link biological condition to ecosystem services
Project Period: 2023 – Present

Natural resource protection and restoration goals are often tied to “ecosystem services,” the benefits people get from nature, such as fishing and other forms of subsistence and recreation. Yet the measurable data of these benefits are not often used to plan, implement, and monitor ecological restoration. Instead, the focus is usually on biological structure or ecological function, which fail to adequately communicate their potential social and economic benefits. State and local partners have expressed a priority need for ways to systematically characterize and measure ecosystem services to support their efforts to identify, maintain, and restore high quality natural resources. For example, EPA has been working with the Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Partnership (MassBays) to characterize biological condition of estuarine habitats, and to understand how conditions effect the availability of the ecosystem services these habitats provide, such as flood mitigation, fishing, and recreation. EPA researchers are working with partners to use information on biological condition and ecosystem services to identify and compare the potential benefits of different restoration options. By having a clearer picture of the benefits of ecological restoration projects, MassBays partners expect growing community support for additional projects around Massachusetts Bay.  

“The Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Partnership has been fortunate to work with researchers in EPA's Office of Research and Development on multiple projects. The broad and deep expertise of the researchers there has enabled us to implement programs we would not have been able to tackle ourselves (like the Biological Condition Gradient). EPA scientists are committed to the practical side of science, helping us to realize improvements in local ecosystems, working alongside local decision makers.” – Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Partnership Director Pam DiBona

Many state and coastal programs use a Biological Condition Gradient (BCG) system—which characterizes conditions from “severely altered” to “natural condition”—to guide restoration targets for coastal and stream ecosystems. EPA researchers are working with partners to develop an ecosystem services analog to the BCG, the Ecosystem Services Gradient (ESG), that describes the potential range of ecosystem services along a gradient of biological condition. The process includes identifying the ecosystem services that are most relevant to stakeholders and the attributes of the biophysical condition that provide such services.

EPA researchers used the BCG/ESG approach with MassBays and their Science and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) to set long-term habitat restoration targets for seagrass, salt marsh, and tidal flats, as well as to identify indicators of restoration progress that included not just acres of habitat, but measures of habitat quality and benefits. A more recent effort with MassBays and partners at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries applies both BCG and ecosystem services to set targets for restoration of diadromous fish – charismatic species that appeal to humans. This effort involves estuaries, rivers, spawning ponds and entire watersheds as well as many groups of stakeholders and beneficiaries. This research is being further applied as part of a pilot study in the Saugus River Watershed that will help partners better compare the effectiveness of restoration projects toward achieving beneficial use goals, and to communicate locally relevant benefits of restoration decisions to the public.

Our work with the State of Massachusetts shows how approaches that combine ecological and socioeconomic goals can lead to more effective, public-supported restoration targets that benefit both nature and people