Wetlands Outcome:Factors Influencing Progress

Conflicting political priorities can impede wetland restoration efforts. Decision-makers must raise wetland protection and restoration as a priority that can address multiple environmental and social ills, including poor water quality, reduced wildlife habitat, increased flooding and climate change.

Increasing and incentivizing the willingness of landowners to restore and enhance wetlands is critical to this outcome’s success. We must better understand the obstacles to landowner participation, which include the economic implications of wetland restoration, the existing interest and eligibility to enroll in existing programs, the effectiveness of current outreach efforts and other social and political factors.

Funding must be dedicated to wetland restoration, wetland enhancement and the technical staff who will manage this work.

While a new reporting system was implemented to address issues, further work is needed to streamline wetland restoration tracking and improve overall reporting and the accuracy of reported practices and acreages. In the long term, an effort to track gains and losses in wetlands through effects of climate change is anticipated.

There is not always funding for technical training or for the technical staff to complete wetland restoration work. A series of technical publications or workshops could train practitioners on design criteria, pollution removal rates or methods of integrating multiple programs to provide multiple benefits.

Changing weather patterns and storm intensity will increase the flow of water over land, which wetlands must absorb. Sea level rise also threatens to inundate many coastal wetlands with saltwater. The loss of wetlands will be greater if natural corridors along which wetlands might move inland are removed by development or other factors.