A roadmap for coordinated landscape-scale coastal and marine ecological restoration

National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine and Coastal Hub Project 1.6

This project developed a roadmap to guide research and investment into landscape-scale coastal and marine restoration. To do so it brought together interdisciplinary expertise in coastal engineering, decision theory, marine ecology, modelling and ecosystem services to examine decision support needs and opportunities to restore coastal marine ecosystems at scale. The research focused on the ecosystem services of coastal protection and climate resilience with the recognition that this Nature-based Solution (NbS) approach provides co-benefits such as biodiversity, fisheries production, carbon sequestration, and nutrient cycling.

The research was accomplished through surveys and workshops/meetings with input from key end user groups in industry, NGO, Indigenous and Governmental organisations. There were 6 themes to the research:

1) a national scale survey of decision makers, researchers and practitioners;

2) a targeted approach to Indigenous engagement;

3) a series of workshops with project team members and end-users;

4) a review of coastal engineering literature aimed at understanding the data and models that are available to predict coastal defence benefits of coastal habitats;

5) a compilation of case studies from successful restoration projects in Australia, and

6) the development of the ‘Roadmap’ which consists of 10 underlying principles for coordinated coastal marine restoration.

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