Collaborative Restoration of Coastal Wetlands in the Southeastern US: Salt Marshes and Mangroves

Coastal wetlands provide ecosystem functions, including estuarine and marine fisheries production.  Coastal wetlands in southeastern US have been degraded by agriculture, development, navigational dredging, oil exploration, and mosquito control.  Impacts include filling, impounding, and ditching.  Approximately 75% of coastal wetland on the central east coast of Florida (nearly 40,000 acres) were impounded for mosquito control from the 1950s through 1970s.  Collaborative rehabilitation has taken a variety of forms from reconnection with culverts to full restoration by dike removal.  Another example is the dragline-constructed mosquito ditching used throughout coastal Florida with 2,000 acres impacted just in east central Florida.  The restoration method involves placing the spoil back into the ditches. This method was developed cooperatively at Canaveral National Seashore by their staff, Volusia County Mosquito Control and water management district.   Wetland filling associated with navigational dredging can be seen almost anywhere a reach of the intra-coastal waterway intersects a coastal wetland.  Recent collaboration between public and private partners has developed methods for removing the spoil and restoring these impacted wetlands.  The universal theme across all of these efforts is the need for collaboration. A recently developed planning guide for Florida coastal habitat restoration efforts may be useful.