Boosting saltmarsh management for fisheries species

该博士学位将提供基础研究，以支持盐沼管理，盐沼是一个沿海生态系统，据称是英国渔业物种的苗圃栖息地，但并不合格。盐沼提供多种生态系统服务，包括防洪、蓝碳固存和水质修复（Hudson等）。2021)。它们是海岸线管理规划（SMP2）、生物多样性保护和新兴的蓝碳抵消的自然解决方案（NBS）的核心。沼泽是恢复和保护的优先栖息地（Defra 25年环境计划），也是国家生物多样性管理的组成部分（例如，英格兰生物多样性2020战略）。从历史上看，英国盐沼已枯竭到其覆盖面积的1/4以下，其中许多是通过土地转化为农业（Hudson et al. 2021）。恢复沼泽是昂贵的，涉及通过“有管理的重新调整”的重大工程，在这些工程中，防御工事被破坏，将陆地转化为盐沼。目前，每年的恢复速度远远落后于损失率（45 vs105公顷/年）（Miles & Richardson 2018）。实施恢复的最大障碍是数据不足，无法启用其他强大的工具，如国家统计局、生态系统服务支付（PES）和国家栖息地补偿计划（Hudson et al. 2021）。本博士学位将通过定量证实沼泽恢复和保护对渔业物种的生态效益来激励这些工具。一些利用沼泽的物种具有很高的渔业价值（例如，海鲈、鲻鱼、褐虾），但受到威胁（鳗鱼），或者其管理受到苗圃栖息地数据缺乏的限制（例如，海鲈，Defra 2021）。该学生将在野生鸟类与湿地信托基金会（WWT）工作，将环境研究与利益相关者和政策分析结合起来，找出促进渔业物种沼泽管理的障碍和解决方案。该项目包括对自然和修复的地点进行对比，以了解恢复对渔业的好处。

This PhD will deliver fundamental research in support of managing saltmarshes, a coastal ecosystem with apurported, yet unqualified, role as a nursery habitat for UK fisheries species. Saltmarshes provide multipleecosystem services, including flood protection, blue carbon sequestration and water quality remediation (Hudson etal. 2021). They are central to Nature Based Solutions (NBS) of Shoreline Management Planning (SMP2),biodiversity conservation and emerging blue-carbon offsetting. Marshes are a priority habitat for restoration andconservation (25 Year Environment Plan, Defra) and integral to national biodiversity management (e.g., EnglandBiodiversity 2020 Strategy).Historically, British saltmarshes were depleted to < 1/4 of their cover, many through land-conversion for agriculture(Hudson et al. 2021). Restoring marshes is costly, involving significant engineering through 'managedrealignment', where defences are breached to convert terrestrial land into saltmarsh. Currently, the annual rate ofrestoration lags strongly behind the rate of losses (45 vs105 hectares/year) (Miles & Richardson 2018). The biggestbarrier to implementing restoration is insufficient data to enable otherwise powerful instruments such as NBS,Payment for Ecosystem services (PES) and National Habitat Compensation Programmes (Hudson et al. 2021). ThisPhD will incentivise these instruments through quantitative substantiation of the ecological benefits of marshrestoration and conservation to fisheries species.Several species that use marshes have high fisheries value (e.g., seabass, mullet, brown shrimp), but are threatened(eel) or their management is limited by data scarcity on nursery habitats (e.g., seabass, Defra 2021). Working withand at the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust (WWT), the student will couple environmental research to stakeholder andpolicy analyses, to identify barriers and solutions to boosting marsh management for fisheries species. The projectincludes contrasts between natural and restored sites to inform on restoration benefits to fisheries.