What Begets Success?

Success criteria for wetland restorations are generally tied to regional, site-specific goals. Although it would be a hopeless task to attempt to restore all wetland functions, certain criteria can be used to guide the restoration trajectories toward a desired end-point. For example, the restoration of coastal salt marshes serving as primary nurseries for finfish requires an appropriate balance between vegetated areas and the marsh drainage configuration. The former fuels the base of the food web, while the latter increases "edge", and thereby access to the marsh surface and enhanced exchange between marsh products and adjacent tidal creeks. In this paper, the requisite area of marsh required to replace fish "production lost" at a power plant is established, and a population model developed to estimate the actual number of fish of a particular species produced at the end of the growing season.