Tuesday, August 7, 2007: 8:00 AM-11:30 AM
C3&4, San Jose McEnery Convention Center
OOS 12 - Reducing uncertainty: Adaptive management in the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project
The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, the largest wetland restoration project on the West Coast of the U.S., will begin restoring more than 15,000 acres of former salt ponds in the south San Francisco Bay in 2008. The restoration goals are to provide a mix of habitats for South Bay species, ensure flood protection, and offer a range of wildlife-oriented public access. Restoration and management actions will be phased over approximately 50 years. The Project has identified a number of key uncertainties, both scientific and social, that may be barriers to achieving its goals. Uncertainties are primarily due to gaps in ecological knowledge and inadequate tools for predicting change. To deal with uncertainty, the Project developed a science-based adaptive management approach using research, monitoring and modeling to provide timely and useful information that Project managers will use in decision-making. This session will describe the Project’s adaptive management approach and highlight research-derived information needed by the Project. The session begins with a summary of the Project’s adaptive management plan, which is based on: 1) quantitative restoration targets, monitoring to assess progress, and applied studies/modeling to reduce uncertainty, and 2) the use of Project information to generate management responses. Further presentations address particular studies supporting the adaptive management framework, addressing key uncertainties such as sediment supply and dynamics, bird use of changing habitats, and climate change effects. Finally, the session will include description of numerical models developed to synthesize data across disciplines to increase predictive power.
Organizer:	Lynne Trulio, San Jose State University
Moderator:	Steve Ritchie, South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project
8:00 AM	OOS 12-1		Considerations of the ecology of the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys raviventris raviventris) and sea level rise in planning the restoration of tidal habitats in the South San Francisco Bay Ron Duke, H. T. Harvey & Assoc., Howard Shellhammer, H. T. Harvey & Assoc.
8:20 AM	OOS 12-2		Building science-based adaptive management into ecosystem restoration Lynne Trulio, San Jose State University
8:40 AM	OOS 12-3		Sediment dynamics at the newly restored Island Ponds, South San Francisco Bay John C. Callaway, University of San Francisco, V. Thomas Parker, San Francisco State University, Lisa M. Schile, San Francisco State University
9:00 AM	OOS 12-4		Mercury madness: Will wetland restoration increase the risk of mercury toxicity in San Francisco Bay? Joshua N. Collins, San Francisco Estuary Institute, Letitia Grenier, San Francisco Estuary Institute
9:20 AM	OOS 12-5		Bird use of changing habitats: The good, the bad, and the ugly Danielle Le Fer, San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
9:40 AM			Break
9:50 AM	OOS 12-6		Wetland restoration and birds: Case studies from San Francisco Bay, Chesapeake Bay, and the Florida Everglades Michael Erwin, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
10:10 AM	OOS 12-7		Managing mud: Predicting how estuary-scale geomorphic changes affect intertidal habitats David S. Brew, Philip Williams & Associates, Ltd, Philip B. Williams, Philip Williams & Associates, Ltd
10:30 AM	OOS 12-8		Can public access and wildlife coexist in restored habitats? Jana Sokale, Sokale Environmental Consulting
10:50 AM	OOS 12-9		Interactions between tidal marsh restoration and existing estuarine habitats: Local and large-scale effects Mark Stacey, University of California, Berkeley, Lissa MacVean, University of California, Berkeley

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See more of The ESA/SER Joint Meeting (August 5 -- August 10, 2007)