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AbstractWould-be adopters of ecosystem service analysis frameworks might ask, 'Do such frameworks improve ecosystem service provision or social benefits sufficiently to compensate for any extra effort?' Here we explore that question by retrospectively applying an ecosystem goods and services (EGS) analysis framework to a large river restoration case study conducted by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and comparing potential time costs and outcomes of traditional versus EGS-informed planning. USACE analytic methods can have a large influence on which river and wetland restoration projects are implemented in the United States because they affect which projects or project elements are eligible for federal cost-share funding. A new framework is designed for the USACE and is primarily distinguished from current procedures by adding explicit steps to document and compare tradeoffs and complementarity among all affected EGS, rather than the subset that falls within project purposes. Further, it applies economic concepts to transform ecological performance indicators into social benefit indicators, even if changes cannot be valued. We conclude that, for large multi-partner restoration projects like our case study, using the framework provides novel information on social outcomes that could be used to enhance project design, without substantially increasing scoping costs. The primary benefits of using the framework in the case study appeared to stem from early comprehensive identification of stakeholder interests that might have prevented project delays late in the process, and improving the communication of social benefits and how tradeoffs among EGS benefits were weighed during planning.

Hennig Brandt's discovery of phosphorus (P) occurred during the early European colonization of the Chesapeake Bay region. Today, P, an essential nutrient on land and water alike, is one of the principal threats to the health of the bay. Despite widespread implementation of best management practices across the Chesapeake Bay watershed following the implementation in 2010 of a total maximum daily load (TMDL) to improve the health of the bay, P load reductions across the bay's 166,000-km(2) watershed have been uneven, and dissolved P loads have increased in a number of the bay's tributaries. As the midpoint of the 15-yr TMDL process has now passed, some of the more stubborn sources of P must now be tackled. For nonpoint agricultural sources, strategies that not only address particulate P but also mitigate dissolved P losses are essential. Lingering concerns include legacy P stored in soils and reservoir sediments, mitigation of P in artificial drainage and stormwater from hotspots and converted farmland, manure management and animal heavy use areas, and critical source areas of P in agricultural landscapes. While opportunities exist to curtail transport of all forms of P, greater attention is required toward adapting P management to new hydrologic regimes and transport pathways imposed by climate change. ; Public domain authored by a U.S. government employee

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest, most productive, and most biologically diverse estuary in the continental United States providing crucial habitat and natural resources for culturally and economically important species. Pressures from human population growth and associated development and agricultural intensification have led to excessive nutrient and sediment inputs entering the Bay, negatively affecting the health of the Bay ecosystem and the economic services it provides. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) is a unique program formally created in 1983 as a multi-stakeholder partnership to guide and foster restoration of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. Since its inception, the CBP Partnership has been developing, updating, and applying a complex linked modeling system of watershed, airshed, and estuary models as a planning tool to inform strategic management decisions and Bay restoration efforts. This paper provides a description of the 2017 CBP Modeling System and the higher trophic level models developed by the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, along with specific recommendations that emerged from a 2018 workshop designed to inform future model development. Recom-mendations highlight the need for simulation of watershed inputs, conditions, processes, and practices at higher resolution to provide improved information to guide local nutrient and sediment management plans. More explicit and extensive modeling of connectivity between watershed landforms and estuary sub-areas, estuarine hydrodynamics, watershed and estuarine water quality, the estuarine-watershed socioecological system, and living resources will be important to broaden and improve characterization of responses to targeted nutrient and sediment load reductions. Finally, the value and importance of maintaining effective collaborations among jurisdictional managers, scientists, modelers, support staff, and stakeholder communities is emphasized. An open collaborative and transparent process has been a key element of successes to date and is vitally important as the CBP Partnership moves forward with modeling system improvements that help stakeholders evolve new knowledge, improve management strategies, and better communicate outcomes. ; Chesapeake Bay Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) via the Chesapeake Research Consortium; NSFNational Science Foundation (NSF) [1556661]; NASANational Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) [80NSSC17K0258 49A37A]; NOAANational Oceanic Atmospheric Admin (NOAA) - USA [NA15NMF4570252 NCRS-17] ; Published version ; The views expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This article has been peer reviewed and approved for publication consistent with USGS Fundamental Science Practices (https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1367/).This review paper is based on information that was provided by 70 scientists and managers who participated in a workshop that was convened on January 17-19, 2018 at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, USA. This workshop was funded by the Chesapeake Bay Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) via the Chesapeake Research Consortium. The lead author would like to thank all of the workshop participants for their contributions to that workshop and this paper. In addition, special thanks go to STAC support personnel (specifically, coauthor Rachel Dixon and staff member Elaine Hinrichs) who handled all of the logistics involved in planning and running the workshop. The development of this paper was supported by NSF grant no. 1556661, NASA grant no. 80NSSC17K0258 49A37A and NOAA grant no. NA15NMF4570252 NCRS-17 to R. Hood. Additional support to coauthors was provided by multiple US Federal and State Agencies, and US Universities (see author affiliations above). This is UMCES contribution no. CN 6018. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. ; Public domain authored by a U.S. government employee