Barnas et al 2015 pacific salmon restoration project targeting

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Barnas, K. A., S. L. Katz, D. E. Hamm, M. C. Diaz, and C. E. Jordan. 2015. Is habitat restoration targeting relevant ecological needs for endangered species? Using Pacific Salmon as a case study. Ecosphere 6(7):110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES14-00466.1

Notes (Critique)

  • The subject watersheds were unaware that their restoration systems we being quantified, and so conversely, the investigators where not informed by any of the knowledge being used within local technical work groups to evaluate, prioritize and implement restoration, beyond publicly published planning documents.
  • The SHAPE metric used to quantify whether a suite of actions within a watershed are appropriate assumes that the most appropriate restoration strategy is to have at least one project addressing each concern in a watershed. SHAPE is calculated as the percent of concerns addressed less the percent of actions that address a planned concern.
  • "The sensitivity of our results depends on the choice of crosswalk". The investigators necessarily made a large number of assumptions about the linkage between project types and "concerns", which in turn strongly affected the metric.
  • There is no discussion of how socioeconomic factors may shape the SHAPE metric, such as land availability, rate of funding over time, consistency of funding, existing capacity, or the influence of matching sources of funding in shaping project priorities. Thus the conclusions assume is that project portfolio composition is a result of either successful or unsuccessful alignment with published strategies.
  • The authors suggest that these metrics provide a baseline for adaptive management, and that "the SHAPE score evaluates restoration activity appropriateness"
  • The authors conclude that "...our metrics address the near-term need for an accountability mechanism in decentralized endangered species habitat management."

Notes (Positive)

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