COASTAL WETLAND RESTORATION

Restoring wetlands of our past, for our future

Coastal wetland ecosystems, including mangroves, seagrasses and tidal marshes, store carbon and provide co-benefits, such as coastal protection and fisheries enhancement. Unfortunately, they are one of the most threatened ecosystems on earth and continue to face threats from urban and agricultural development, coastal squeeze, sea-level rise, pollution, and inappropriate recreation.

The restoration of lost and degraded coastal wetland ecosystems is a natural climate solution, resulting in enhanced carbon sequestration and avoided emissions, while delivering important ecological and societal co-benefits.

Our Coastal Wetland Restoration Program comprises of three pillars: Plan, Action and Monitor. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we translate decades of innovative research into on-ground restoration action using new approaches and proven low-cost methods to support ecosystem recovery. We use best-practice standards to implement, monitor and evaluate the outcomes of the restoration actions.

The outcomes from our Coastal Wetland Restoration Program work to improve foundational knowledge of restoration impact on plant and soil function and recovery, and to support the development of blue carbon markets, the valuation of created natural capital, and the resilience to climate change of local communities through building adaptive capacity.

Restoration facts

Disappearing fast

Global wetlands
have
declined
by 64
to 71%
since
1900.

Protection

Protecting existing
blue carbon
ecosystems
could avoid
emissions of
304 Tg CO2e
per year.

Restoration

Large-scale restoration of blue carbon ecosystems could remove an extra ~3% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon markets

In early 2022,
Australia released
its first blue
carbon method
under the
Emissions
Reduction Fund.

UN Decade

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. 

Our Coastal Restoration Program

Plan

We undertake pre-restoration planning, including feasibility assessments for restoration activities and carbon markets, cost-benefit analysis, restoration action plans, stakeholder engagement and spatial planning to optimise environmental, economic and social outcomes of coastal restoration projects.

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Action

We translate decades of innovative research into on-ground restoration action using new approaches and proven low-cost methods to support ecosystem recovery. We implement and manage restoration activities responsibly, effectively and efficiently to support the re-establishment of the natural functions of coastal wetlands.

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Monitor

We evaluate the short- and long-term impacts of the restoration activities on a range of ecological attributes (structural diversity, ecosystem function, species composition, physical condition, absence of threats and external exchanges) to ensure project goals and objectives are being achieved.

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Plan

Cost Benefit Analysis of coastal wetland restoration

This project will undertake a cost-benefit analysis of coastal wetland restoration to develop the business case for upscaling coastal wetland restoration, which will look at ‘blue carbon’ credits as well as achieving other important co-benefits.

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Mapping the benefits and costs of management actions for coastal wetlands in Victoria

This project used the UN System of Environmental Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) to assess the extent, condition and physical and monetary services provided by existing mangroves, saltmarshes, and seagrasses across Victoria, and how these could be improved through different management options (e.g., fencing, levee removal, managed removal).

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Enabling Blue Carbon Markets

This project aims to understand the amenability of landholders to change land use practices within their lands, and to develop a pre-feasibility assessment of potential restoration sites at local scale that combines on-ground restoration work and the generation of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).

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Upscaling low-cost restoration activities

This project will work towards increasing restoration efforts state-wide by determining scale of opportunity for fencing, supporting practitioners with specialist resources, and reviewing financial impetus mechanisms to encourage long term protection.

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Action

The Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration Program

The #VicWetlandRehab is a multidisciplinary program– comprising Academia, Government, Industry, and Traditional Owners – guiding and undertaking the restoration of critical wetland habitat on both private and public land, helping to facilitate the recovery of some of Victoria’s most endangered birds, frogs and other threatened plants and animals.

#VicWetlandRehab

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Regenerating Our Coasts

Regenerating Our Coasts is a multidisciplinary program using biodegradable structures to promote coastal regeneration in areas that are struggling to revegetate naturally.

#ReGenOurCoasts

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Monitor

Gippsland’s Wetland Restoration Citizen Science Program

Empowering the Gippsland community on climate change, by transforming them into citizen scientists that contribute to local climate actions, while collecting data to inform wetland management in Victoria.

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Saltmarsh restoration and monitoring utilising citizen scientists

This project restored marginal farmland back to coastal wetlands using low-cost exclusion fencing in Swan Bay, Victoria. Blue Carbon Lab researchers undertook a pilot study where citizen scientists, in combination with remote sensing methods, helped to monitor the restoration outcomes using vegetation as an indicator.

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Exploring belowground recovery in response to 25 years of restoration

Using a space-for-time approach that comprises saltmarsh ecosystems established for 0-60 years, this project is monitoring the belowground responses to restoration. Our techniques include root growth and decay, soil carbon stocks and physical soil properties.

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