Scientific requirements for ecosystem-based management in the restoration of Chesapeake Bay and Coastal Louisiana

Ecosystem-based management requires integration of multiple system components and uses, identifying and striving for sustainable outcomes, precaution in avoiding deleterious actions, and adaptation based on experience to achieve effective solutions. Efforts underway or in planning to restore and manage two major coastal ecosystems, the Chesapeake Bay (Chesapeake Bay Program) and coastal Louisiana (Louisiana Coastal Area Plan and Gulf Hypoxia Action Plan), are examined with respect to these four principles. These multifaceted restoration programs represent among the foremost challenges for science and coastal management in the United States and, thereby, have important implications for addressing the coastal environmental crises being experienced throughout the world. Although frameworks exist for integration of management objectives in both regions, the technical ability for the quantitatively integrated assessment of multiple stressors and strategies is still in an early stage of development. Science is also being challenged to identify sustainable futures, but emerging concepts of ecosystem resilience offer some promising approaches. Precautionary management is best conceived with regard to fisheries, but should become a more explicit consideration for managing risks and avoiding unanticipated consequences of restoration activities. Adaptive management is embraced as a central process in coastal Louisiana ecosystem restoration, but has not formally been implemented in the more mature Chesapeake Bay restoration. Based on these experiences, ecosystem-based management could be advanced by: (1) orienting more scientific activity to providing the solutions needed for ecosystem restoration; (2) building bridges crossing scientific and management barriers to more effectively integrate science and management; (3) directing more attention to understanding and predicting achievable restoration outcomes that consider possible state changes and ecosystem resilience; (4) improving the capacity of science to characterize and effectively communicate uncertainty; and (5) fully integrating modeling, observations, and research to facilitate more adaptive management.