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The ecosystem service (ES) community aspires to illuminate how nature contributes to human well-being, and thereby elevate consideration of nature in decision making. So far, however, policy impact of ES research has been limited. To understand why, we identify five key elements of ES research that help inform decisions by connecting the supply of ES to those who benefit from them. Our structured review of the ES literature reveals that only 13% of assessments included the full ES chain from place to value. Only 7% of assessments considered the distribution of ES benefits explicitly across demographic or other beneficiary groups (for example, private landowners versus the broader public), although disaggregation across regions or spatial units was more common (44%). Finally, crucial mediating factors that affect who benefits and how (for example, the vulnerability of beneficiaries or the availability of substitutes for ES) were considered in only 35% of assessments. Our results suggest that increasing the decision relevance of ES research requires more effectively predicting the impacts of specific decisions on the value and distribution of ES across beneficiary groups. Such efforts will need to integrate ecological models with socioeconomic and cultural dimensions of ES more closely than does the current ES literature. To increase the policy relevance of ecosystem service benefits research, studies need to better predict the impact of specific decisions, according to an analysis of the literature.

Marine mammal bycatch poses a particular challenge in developing countries, where data to document bycatch and its effects are often lacking. Using the Bycatch Risk Assessment (ByRA) toolkit, based on InVEST open-source models, we chose 4 field sites in Southeast Asia with varying amounts of data on marine mammals and fishing occurrence: Trat province in the eastern Gulf of Thailand, the Sibu-Tinggi Islands and Kuching Bay, Malaysia, and Kien Giang Biosphere Reserve in southwestern Vietnam. These field sites have similar species of coastal marine mammals, small-scale and commercial fisheries, and support for research from universities and/or management. In Thailand and Kuching, results showed changing patterns of fishing and Irrawaddy dolphin Orcaella brevirostris habitat use across seasons, showing how bycatch risk could change throughout the year. Risk maps for dugongs Dugong dugon in peninsular Malaysia highlighted patterns of bycatch risk concentrated around a mainland fishing pier, and revealed high risk in a northern subregion. In Vietnam, first maps of bycatch risk for the Irrawaddy dolphin showed the highest risk driven by intensive use of gillnets and trawling gear. ByRA pinpointed areas of spatial and seasonal bycatch exposure, and estimated the consequence of bycatch on local species, providing managers with critical information on where to focus bycatch mitigation and meet new global standards for US Marine Mammal Protection Act and other international regulation (e.g. Official Journal of the European Union 2019; Regulation 2019/1241) compliance. The toolbox, a transferable open-source tool, can be used to guide fisheries management, marine mammal conservation, spatial planning, and further research. KEY WORDS: Incidental bycatch · Marine mammals · Spatial risk assessment · Open-source GIS toolkit · Small-scale fisheries · Southeast Asia

Salt marshes are at risk globally if they cannot keep pace with sea level rise. Along the United States Mid-Atlantic coast, high marsh has already declined, and is particularly vulnerable to future loss due to greater regional rates of relative sea level rise and limited capacity for both vertical accretion and landward migration. To support climate adaptation efforts in the region, we conducted a spatial overlay analysis to (1) assess interior ponding in the high tidal marsh zone caused by waterlogging, and (2) identify restoration opportunities where poor drainage is limiting natural recovery. Surface inundation has increased across over 14,000 ha of high marsh in the region, mostly along the eastern Chesapeake Bay and New Jersey coast. Within this waterlogged area, we identified 239 potential restoration sites (275 ha). Validation data indicate our analysis had relatively high accuracy in identifying potential restoration sites, with a true positive rate of 76% and a true negative rate of 96%. Widespread waterlogging emphasizes the need for climate adaptation efforts to restore and protect high marsh in the face of future change. Our recommended restoration strategy of connecting waterlogged sites to tidal creeks aligns with best practices by enabling drainage of high marsh to halt or even reverse ponding, improve recovery from future flooding events, and ultimately facilitate marsh migration with sea level rise.

Rising seas, more frequent storms and other climate-driven coastal hazards necessitate adaptation planning measures to protect people and property. To date, coastal vulnerability assessments have prioritized the most exposed areas of coastline, but there is a gap between recognized climate science and the feasibility or suitability considerations relevant for implementing coastal adaptation strategies—including legal, policy, financial, or engineered approaches—to address coastal threats. This paper sets forth a methodology for bridging the gap between climate science, law and coastal adaptation policies. This methodology seeks to connect spatial analysis methods with attributes of coastal adaptation strategies that make them inherently place-based—ranging from engineered solutions, to legal strategies and financial tools—to determine where they are legally feasible and suitable. Both spatial and non-spatial limiting and enabling conditions of coastal adaptation policies drive these determinations. The methodology integrates a spatial framework using feasibility statements derived by 1) coupling these conditions and features with spatial information (e.g., zoning, land use/land cover, geomorphologic features), and 2) identifying suitability conditions through synthesizing policy considerations for each coastal adaptation strategy.

The emissions reduction pledges made by individual countries through the 2015 Paris Agreement represent the current global commitment to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the face of the enduring climate crisis. Natural lands carbon sequestration and storage are critical for successful pathways to global decarbonization (i.e., as a negative emissions technology). Coastal vegetated habitats maintain carbon sequestration rates exceeding forest sequestration rates on a per unit area basis by nearly two orders of magnitude. These blue carbon habitats and their associated carbon sequestration benefits are vulnerable to losses from land-use change and sea-level rise. Incorporation of blue carbon habitats in climate change policy is one strategy for both maintaining these habitats and conserving significant carbon sequestration capabilities. Previous policy assessments have found the potential for incorporation of coastal carbon sequestration in national-level policies, yet there has – to date – been little inclusion of blue carbon in the national-scale implementation of Paris commitments. Recently, sub-national jurisdictions have gained attention as models for pathways to decarbonization. However, few previous studies have examined sub-national level policy opportunities for operationalizing blue carbon into climate decision-making. California is uniquely poised to integrate benefits from blue carbon into its coastal planning and management and its suite of climate mitigation policies. Here, we evaluated legal authorities and policy contexts addressing sequestration specifically from blue carbon habitats. We synthesized the progressive action in California's approaches to mitigate carbon emissions including statutory, regulatory, and non-regulatory opportunities to incorporate blue carbon ecosystem service information into state- and local-level management decisions. To illustrate how actionable blue carbon information can be produced for use in decision-making, we conducted a spatial analysis of blue carbon sequestration in several locations in California across multiple agencies and management contexts. We found that the average market values of carbon sequestration services in 2100 ranged from $7,730 to $44,000 per hectare and that the social cost of carbon sequestration value was 1.3 to 2.7 times the market value. We also demonstrated that restoration of small areas with high sequestration rates can be comparable to the sequestration of existing marshes. Our results illustrate how accessible information about carbon sequestration in coastal habitats can be directly incorporated into existing policy frameworks at the sub-national scale. The incorporation of blue carbon sequestration benefits into sub-national climate policies can serve as a model for the development of future policy approaches for negative emissions technologies, with consequences for the success of the Paris Agreement and science-based decarbonization by mid-century.

Fishing activities continue to decimate populations of marine mammals, fish, and their habitats in the coastal waters of the Kep Archipelago, a cluster of tropical islands on the Cambodia-Vietnam border. In 2019, the area was recognized as an Important Marine Mammal Area, largely owing to the significant presence of Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris). Understanding habitat preferences and distribution aids in the identification of areas to target for monitoring and conservation, which is particularly challenging in data-limited nations of Southeast Asia. Here, we test the hypothesis that accurate seasonal habitat models, relying on environmental data and species occurrences alone, can be used to describe the ecological processes governing abundance for the resident dolphin population of the Kep Archipelago, Cambodia. Leveraging two years of species and oceanographic data—depth, slope, distance to shore and rivers, sea surface temperature, and chlorophyll-a concentration—we built temporally stratified models to estimate distribution and infer seasonal habitat importance. Overall, Irrawaddy dolphins of Kep displayed habitat preferences similar to other populations, and were predominately encountered in three situations: (1) water depths ranging from 3.0 to 5.3 m, (2) surface water temperatures of 27–32°C, and (3) in close proximity to offshore islands (< 7.5 km). With respect to seasonality, statistical tests detected significant differences for all environment variables considered except seafloor slope. Four predictor sets, each with a unique combination of variables, were used to map seasonal variation in dolphin habitat suitability. Models with highest variable importance scores were water depth, pre- and during monsoon season (61–62%), and sea surface temperature, post-monsoon (71%), which suggests that greater freshwater flow during the wet season may alter primary productivity and dolphin prey abundance. Importantly, findings show the majority of areas with highest habitat suitability are not currently surveyed for dolphins and located outside Kep’s Marine Fisheries Management Area. This research confirms the need to expand monitoring to new areas where high-impact fisheries and other human activities operate. Baseline knowledge on dolphin distribution can guide regional conservation efforts by taking into account the seasonality of the species and support the design of tailored management strategies that address transboundary threats to an Important Marine Mammal Area.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment described 4 classes of services or functions that ecosystems and their component parts deliver to the benefit of humans: provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services. Birds, including Neotropical birds, provide a diverse array of services in all 4 classes. We review the literature describing ecosystem services provided by Neotropical birds, draw inference from studies of avian services in other regions when Neotropical studies are limited, and identify key information gaps. Neotropical birds provide provisioning services in the form of meat and eggs for food, and feathers for down and ornamentation. Regulating services are among the most valuable services provided by Neotropical birds, including pollination, pest control, seed dispersal, and scavenging. Neotropical birds also provide supporting services in the form of nutrient cycling, such as through the deposition of guano on offshore islands. Finally, Neotropical birds provide cultural services as pets (caged birds), sources of recreation (e.g., birdwatching, hunting), as well as by inspiring art, photography, and religious customs. Much remains to be learned about the ecology and natural history of many Neotropical birds before we can fully assign value—monetary, nonmaterial, or otherwise—to the services they provide. However, what we have learned to date makes it clear that humans benefit from birds through multiple services, including but not limited to pest reduction, pollination of some agricultural plants, and seed dispersal.

A growing number of nations aim to design coastal plans to reduce conflicts in space and safeguard ecosystems that provide important benefits to people and economies. Critics of coastal and ocean planning point to a complicated process with many actors, objectives, and uncertain outcomes. This paper explores one such decision-making process in Belize, which combines ecosystem service modeling, stakeholder participation, and spatial planning to design the country’s first integrated coastal zone management plan, officially approved by the government in August 2016. We assessed risk to three coastal-marine habitats posed by eight human uses and quantified current and future delivery of three ecosystem services: protection from storms, catch and revenue from lobster fishing, and tourism expenditures to identify a preferred zoning scheme. We found that a highly adaptive team of planners, scientists, and analysts can overcome common planning obstacles, including a dearth of data describing the health of the coastal zone and the many uses it supports, complicated legal and political landscapes, and limited in-country technical capacity. Our work in Belize serves as an example for how to use science about the ways in which nature benefits people to effectively and transparently inform coastal and ocean planning decisions around the world.EDITED BY Joao Rodrigues

Fisheries bycatch has been identified as the greatest threat to marine mammals worldwide. Characterizing the impacts of bycatch on marine mammals is challenging because it is difficult to both observe and quantify, particularly in small-scale fisheries where data on fishing effort and marine mammal abundance and distribution are often limited. The lack of risk frameworks that can integrate and visualize existing data have hindered the ability to describe and quantify bycatch risk. Here, we describe the design of a new geographic information systems tool built specifically for the analysis of bycatch in small-scale fisheries, called Bycatch Risk Assessment (ByRA). Using marine mammals in Malaysia and Vietnam as a test case, we applied ByRA to assess the risks posed to Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) and dugongs (Dugong dugon) by five small-scale fishing gear types (hook and line, nets, longlines, pots and traps, and trawls). ByRA leverages existing data on animal distributions, fisheries effort, and estimates of interaction rates by combining expert knowledge and spatial analyses of existing data to visualize and characterize bycatch risk. By identifying areas of bycatch concern while accounting for uncertainty using graphics, maps and summary tables, we demonstrate the importance of integrating available geospatial data in an accessible format that taps into local knowledge and can be corroborated by and communicated to stakeholders of data-limited fisheries. Our methodological approach aims to meet a critical need of fisheries managers: to identify emergent interaction patterns between fishing gears and marine mammals and support the development of management actions that can lead to sustainable fisheries and mitigate bycatch risk for species of conservation concern.

Climate change and population growth are degrading coastal ecosystems and increasing risks to communities and infrastructure. Reliance on seawalls and other types of hardened shorelines is unsustainable in an era of rising seas, given the costs to build and maintain these structures and their unintended consequences on ecosystems. This is especially true for communities that depend on coastal and marine ecosystems for livelihoods and sustenance. Protecting and restoring coral reefs and coastal forests can be lower cost, sustainable alternatives for shoreline protection. However, decision-makers often lack basic information about where and under what conditions ecosystems reduce risk to coastal hazards and who would benefit. To better understand where to prioritize ecosystems for coastal protection, we assessed risk reduction provided by coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass along the entire coast of The Bahamas, under current and future climate scenarios. Modeled results show that the population most exposed to coastal hazards would more than double with future sea-level rise and more than triple if ecosystems were lost or degraded. We also found that ecosystem-based risk reduction differs across islands due to variation in a suite of ecological, physical, and social variables. On some populated islands, like Grand Bahama and Abaco, habitats provide protection to disproportionately large numbers of people compared to the rest of the country. Risk reduction provided by ecosystems is also evident for several sparsely populated, remote coastal communities, which in some cases, have large elderly populations. The results from our analyses were critical for engaging policy-makers in discussions about employing natural and nature-based features for coastal resilience. After hurricanes Joaquin and Matthew hit The Bahamas in 2016 and 2017, our assessment of coastal risk reduction and the multiple benefits provided by coastal ecosystems helped pave the way for an innovative loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to the Government of The Bahamas to invest in mangrove restoration for coastal resilience. This work serves as an example for other regions and investors aiming to use assessments of ecosystem services to inform financing of natural and nature-based approaches for coastal resilience and climate adaptation.

Coastal protection of communities and property using “green infrastructure” approaches is gaining popularity as the science and practice improve. Guidance is limited for decision makers interested in taking action to protect shorelines. Here, we offer practical guidance for decision makers interested in moving beyond generalities for coastal protection strategies. We present three case examples from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and in Belize, each posing different questions, and thus using different approaches, to evaluate whether green infrastructure strategies could be useful. For basic questions about where habitat-based approaches are likely to add value, index-based models are useful in identifying priority areas for habitat protection or restoration. Process-based models are best used to examine strategies where the interest is in the likely magnitude of value from gray and green infrastructure approaches. Process-based models in coastal Texas demonstrate that marsh habitats are spatially variabl...

Spatial models of ecosystem services inform land use and development decisions. Understanding who uses these models and conditions associated with use is critical for increasing their impact. We tracked use of The Natural Capital Project's InVEST models and observed 19 different models were run 43,363 times in 104 countries over a 25-month period. Models for regulating services were most commonly used. We analyzed relationships between country-level variables and use of models and found capacity (population, GDP, Internet and computer access, and InVEST trainings), governance, biodiversity, and conservation spending are positively correlated with use. Civic involvement in conservation, carbon project funding, and forest cover are not correlated with use. Using multivariate statistical models, we analyzed which combinations of country-level variables best explain use of InVEST and found further evidence that variables related to capacity are the strongest predictors. Finally, we examined InVEST trainings in detail and found a significant effect of trainings on subsequent use of InVEST models. Our results indicate the general capacity of a country may limit uptake and use of decision support tools such as InVEST. Model-specific trainings are only one form of capacity building likely required for models to have desired levels of use and policy impact.

Businesses may be missing opportunities to account for ecosystem services in their decisions, because they do not have methods to quantify and value ecosystem services. We developed a method to quantify and value coastal protection and other ecosystem services in the context of a cost-benefit analysis of hurricane risk mitigation options for a business. We first analyze linked biophysical and economic models to examine the potential protection provided by marshes. We then applied this method to The Dow Chemical Company's Freeport, Texas facility to evaluate natural (marshes), built (levee), and hybrid (marshes and a levee designed for marshes) defenses against a 100-y hurricane. Model analysis shows that future sea-level rise decreases marsh area, increases flood heights, and increases the required levee height (12%) and cost (8%). In this context, marshes do not provide sufficient protection to the facility, located 12 km inland, to warrant a change in levee design for a 100-y hurricane. Marshes do provide some protection near shore and under smaller storm conditions, which may help maintain the coastline and levee performance in the face of sea-level rise. In sum, the net present value to the business of built defenses ($217 million [2010 US$]) is greater than natural defenses ($15 million [2010 US$]) and similar to the hybrid defense scenario ($229 million [2010 US$]). Examination of a sample of public benefits from the marshes shows they provide at least $117 million (2010 US$) in coastal protection, recreational value, and C sequestration to the public, while supporting 12 fisheries and more than 300 wildlife species. This study provides information on where natural defenses may be effective and a replicable approach that businesses can use to incorporate private, as well as public, ecosystem service values into hurricane risk management at other sites.

Recent calls for ocean planning envision informed management of social and ecological systems to sustain delivery of ecosystem services to people. However, until now, no coastal and marine planning process has applied an ecosystem-services framework to understand how human activities affect the flow of benefits, to create scenarios, and to design a management plan. We developed models that quantify services provided by corals, mangroves, and seagrasses. We used these models within an extensive engagement process to design a national spatial plan for Belize’s coastal zone. Through iteration of modeling and stakeholder engagement, we developed a preferred plan, currently under formal consideration by the Belizean government. Our results suggest that the preferred plan will lead to greater returns from coastal protection and tourism than outcomes from scenarios oriented toward achieving either conservation or development goals. The plan will also reduce impacts to coastal habitat and increase revenues from lobster fishing relative to current management. By accounting for spatial variation in the impacts of coastal and ocean activities on benefits that ecosystems provide to people, our models allowed stakeholders and policymakers to refine zones of human use. The final version of the preferred plan improved expected coastal protection by >25% and more than doubled the revenue from fishing, compared with earlier versions based on stakeholder preferences alone. Including outcomes in terms of ecosystem-service supply and value allowed for explicit consideration of multiple benefits from oceans and coasts that typically are evaluated separately in management decisions.

In their Policy Forum “U.S. seafood import restriction presents opportunity and risk” (16 December, p. [1372][1]), R. Williams et al. describe some possible effects of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rule requiring that seafood imported into the United States must

New coastal development may offer economic benefits to resort builders and even local communities, but these projects can also impact local ecosystems, key wildlife, and the draw for tourists. We explore how light from Cabo Cortés, a proposed coastal development in Baja California Sur, Mexico, may alter natural light cues used by sea turtle hatchlings. We adapt a viewshed approach to model exterior light originating from the resort under plausible zoning scenarios. This spatially explicit information allows stakeholders to evaluate the likely impact of alternative development options. Our model suggests that direct light’s ability to reach sea turtle nesting beaches varies greatly by source location and height—with some plausible development scenarios leading to significantly less light pollution than others. Our light pollution maps can enhance decision-making, offering clear guidance on where to avoid elevated lamps or when to recommend lighting restrictions. Communities can use this information to participate in development planning to mitigate ecological, aesthetic and economic impacts from artificial lighting. Though tested in Mexico, our approach and free, open-source software can be applied in other places around the world to better understand and manage the threats of light pollution to sea turtles. Keywords: Artificial light, Viewshed analysis, Sea turtle conservation, Coastal resort management, InVEST

Natural capital is of critical importance for biodiversity and people's well-being. Studies indicate that understanding the connection between environmental health and human benefit (i.e., ecosyste...

Sea-level rise, potential changes in the intensity and frequency of storms, and consequent shoreline erosion and flooding will have increasing impacts on the economy and culture of coastal regions. A growing body of evidence suggests that coastal ecosystemsdnatural infrastructuredcan play an important role in reducing the vulnerability of people and property to these impacts. To effectively inform climate adaptation planning, experts often struggle to develop relevant local and regional information at a scale that is appropriate for decision-making. In addition, institutional capacity and resource constraints often limit planners’ ability to incorporate innovative, scientifically based approaches into planning. In this paper, we detail our collaborative process in two coastal California counties to account for the role of natural infrastructure in climate adaptation planning. We used an interdisciplinary team of scientists, economists, engineers, and law and policy experts and planners, and an iterative engagement process to (1) identify natural infrastructure that is geographically relevant to local jurisdictional planning units, (2) refine data and models to reflect regional processes, and (3) develop metrics likely to resonate within the local decision contexts. Using an open source decisionsupport tool, we demonstrated that protecting existing natural infrastructuredincluding coastal dunes and wetlandsdcould reduce the vulnerability of water resource-related structures, coastal populations, and farmland most exposed to coastal flooding and erosion. This information formed part of the rationale for priority climate adaptation projects the county governments are now pursuing. Our collaborative and iterative approach, as well as replicable use of an open source decision-support tool, facilitated inclusion of relevant natural infrastructure information into regional climate adaptation planning processes and products. This approach can be applied in diverse coastal climate adaptation planning contexts to locate and characterize the degree to which specific natural habitats can reduce vulnerability to sea-level rise and storms.

Extreme weather, sea-level rise and degraded coastal ecosystems are placing people and property at greater risk of damage from coastal hazards 1‐5 . The likelihood and magnitude of losses may be reduced by intact reefs and coastal vegetation 1 , especially when those habitats fringe vulnerable communities and infrastructure. Using five sea-level-rise scenarios, we calculate a hazard index for every 1 km 2 of the United States coastline. We use this index to identify the most vulnerable people and property as indicated by being in the upper quartile of hazard for the nation’s coastline. The number of people, poor families, elderly and total value of residential property that are most exposed to hazards can be reduced by half if existing coastal habitats remain fully intact. Coastal habitats defend the greatest number of people and total property value in Florida, New York and California. Our analyses deliver the first national map of risk reduction owing to natural habitats and indicates where conservation and restoration of reefs and vegetation have the greatest potential to protect coastal communities. Globally, coastal flooding and sea level are expected to increase significantly by mid-century, with potentially severe consequences for coastal populations around the world 6 . In the United States

The overall objective of our research project is to understand the spatial inequality in health in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. We also utilize GIS technology to measure the association of adverse health and mortality outcomes with neighborhood ecology. We approached this in variety of ways, including multivariate analysis of imagery classification and census data. A key element in the research has been to obtain in-person interviews from 3,200 female respondents in the city, and then relate health data obtained from the women to the ecology of the neighborhoods in which they live. Detailed maps are a requirement for these field-based activities. However, commercially available street maps of Accra tend to be highly generalized and not very useful for the kind of health and social science research being undertaken by this project, The purpose of this paper is to describe street maps that were created for the project’s office in downtown Accra and used to locate households of respondents. They incorporate satellite imagery with other geographic layers to provide the most important visual interpretation of the linkage between imagery and neighborhoods. Ultimately, through a detailed analysis of spatial disparities in health in Accra, Ghana, we aim to provide a model for the interpretation of urban health inequalities in cities of urbanizing and often poor countries.

People around the world are looking to marine ecosystems to provide additional benefits to society. As they consider expanding current uses and investing in new ones, new management approaches are needed that will sustain the delivery of the diverse benefits that people want and need. An ecosystem services framework provides metrics for assessing the quantity, quality, and value of benefits obtained from different portfolios of uses. Such a framework has been developed for assessments on land, and is now being developed for application to marine ecosystems. Here, we present marine Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST), a new tool to assess (i.e., map, model, and value) multiple services provided by marine ecosystems. It allows one to estimate changes in a suite of services under different management scenarios and to investigate trade-offs among the scenarios, including implications of drivers like climate. We describe key inputs and outputs of each of the component ecosystem se...

Natural habitats have the ability to protect coastal communities against the impacts of waves and storms, yet it is unclear how different habitats complement each other to reduce those impacts. Here, we investigate the individual and combined coastal protection services supplied by live corals on reefs, seagrass meadows, and mangrove forests during both non-storm and storm conditions, and under present and future sea-level conditions. Using idealized profiles of fringing and barrier reefs, we quantify the services supplied by these habitats using various metrics of inundation and erosion. We find that, together, live corals, seagrasses, and mangroves supply more protection services than any individual habitat or any combination of two habitats. Specifically, we find that, while mangroves are the most effective at protecting the coast under non-storm and storm conditions, live corals and seagrasses also moderate the impact of waves and storms, thereby further reducing the vulnerability of coastal regions. Also, in addition to structural differences, the amount of service supplied by habitats in our analysis is highly dependent on the geomorphic setting, habitat location and forcing conditions: live corals in the fringing reef profile supply more protection services than seagrasses; seagrasses in the barrier reef profile supply more protection services than live corals; and seagrasses, in our simulations, can even compensate for the long-term degradation of the barrier reef. Results of this study demonstrate the importance of taking integrated and place-based approaches when quantifying and managing for the coastal protection services supplied by ecosystems.

Many hope that ocean waves will be a source for clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy, yet wave energy conversion facilities may affect marine ecosystems through a variety of mechanisms, including competition with other human uses. We developed a decision-support tool to assist siting wave energy facilities, which allows the user to balance the need for profitability of the facilities with the need to minimize conflicts with other ocean uses. Our wave energy model quantifies harvestable wave energy and evaluates the net present value (NPV) of a wave energy facility based on a capital investment analysis. The model has a flexible framework and can be easily applied to wave energy projects at local, regional, and global scales. We applied the model and compatibility analysis on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada to provide information for ongoing marine spatial planning, including potential wave energy projects. In particular, we conducted a spatial overlap analysis with a variety of existing uses and ecological characteristics, and a quantitative compatibility analysis with commercial fisheries data. We found that wave power and harvestable wave energy gradually increase offshore as wave conditions intensify. However, areas with high economic potential for wave energy facilities were closer to cable landing points because of the cost of bringing energy ashore and thus in nearshore areas that support a number of different human uses. We show that the maximum combined economic benefit from wave energy and other uses is likely to be realized if wave energy facilities are sited in areas that maximize wave energy NPV and minimize conflict with existing ocean uses. Our tools will help decision-makers explore alternative locations for wave energy facilities by mapping expected wave energy NPV and helping to identify sites that provide maximal returns yet avoid spatial competition with existing ocean uses.

Faced with the challenges of increased human use of coastal areas, ecologists, engineers and economists have been developing new ways to account for the protective services from coastal hazards provided by marine ecosystems. The Coastal Protection model of Marine InVEST quantifies and values the ability of biogenic habitats to provide coastal communities with protection from erosion and flooding, using process- based methods. It is composed a two sub-models: the Coastal Vulnerability Index model, and the Coastal Protection from Erosion and Inundation model. The first model maps the location of human population and provides a qualitative estimate of exposure to erosion and inundation during storms. The second model quantifies the amount of erosion and inundation avoided by natural habitats, and values this habitat in economic and social terms. Together, they inform coastal managers of the benefits provided by the natural environment and provide tools to argue for conservation and/or restoration.

Integrated coastal and ocean management requires transparent and accessible approaches for understanding the influence of human activities on marine environments. Here we introduce a model for assessing the combined risk to habitats from multiple ocean uses. We apply the model to coral reefs, mangrove forests and seagrass beds in Belize to inform the design of the country?s first Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Plan. Based on extensive stakeholder engagement, review of existing legislation and data collected from diverse sources, we map the current distribution of coastal and ocean activities and develop three scenarios for zoning these activities in the future. We then estimate ecosystem risk under the current and three future scenarios. Current levels of risk vary spatially among the nine coastal planning regions in Belize. Empirical tests of the model are strong?three-quarters of the measured data for coral reef health lie within the 95% confidence interval of interpolated model data and 79% of the predicted mangrove occurrences are associated with observed responses. The future scenario that harmonizes conservation and development goals results in a 20% reduction in the area of high-risk habitat compared to the current scenario, while increasing the extent of several ocean uses. Our results are a component of the ICZM Plan for Belize that will undergo review by the national legislature in 2015. This application of our model to marine spatial planning in Belize illustrates an approach that can be used broadly by coastal and ocean planners to assess risk to habitats under current and future management scenarios.