Bøger af Scott Dusterhoff

The Laguna de Santa Rosa, located in the Russian River watershed in Sonoma County, CA, is an expansive freshwater wetland complex that hosts a rich diversity of plant and wildlife species, many of which are federally or state listed as threatened, endangered, or species of special concern. The Laguna is also home to a thriving agricultural community that depends on the land for its livelihood. Over the past 200 years, modifications to the Laguna and its surrounding landscape have degraded habitat conditions for both wildlife and people. To help improve the Laguna ecosystem, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and Sonoma Water funded the Laguna-Mark West Creek Watershed Master Restoration Planning Project. The overall goal of this report is to develop a plan that supports ecosystem services in the Laguna-through the restoration and enhancement of landscape processes that form and sustain habitats and improve water quality-while considering flood management issues and the productivity of agricultural lands. The first step in the Planning Project was developing a long-term Resilient Landscape Vision for the Laguna, which is detailed in this report. The Vision highlights opportunities for multi-benefit habitat restoration and land management within the Laguna's 100-year floodplain. This Vision will be used to build the Restoration Plan, which will provide restoration targets and restoration project concepts that can lead to longterm ecosystem improvement.

This report provides a regional analysis of morphologic change and sediment dynamics in flood control channels at the Bay interface, and multi-benefit management concepts aimed at bringing habitat restoration into flood risk management.

The resilience of San Francisco Bay shore habitats, such as tidal marshes and mudflats, is essential to all who live in the Bay Area. Tidal marshes and tidal flats (also known as mudflats) are key components of the shore habitats, collectively called baylands, which protect billions of dollars of bay-front housing and infrastructure (including neighborhoods, business parks, highways, sewage treatment plants, and landfills). They purify the Bay's water, support endangered wildlife, nurture fisheries, and provide people access to nature within the urban environment. Bay Area residents showed their commitment to restoring these critical habitats when they voted for a property tax to pay for large-scale tidal marsh restoration. However, climate change poses a great threat, because there may not be enough natural sediment supply for tidal marshes and mudflats to gain elevation fast enough to keep pace with sea-level rise. This report analyses current data and climate projections to determine how much natural sediment may be available for tidal marshes and mudflats and how much supplemental sediment may be needed under different future scenarios. These sediment supply and demand estimates are combined with scientific knowledge of natural physical and biological processes to offer a strategy for sediment delivery that will allow these wetlands to survive a changing climate and provide benefits to people and nature for many decades to come. The approach developed in this report may also be useful beyond San Francisco Bay because shoreline protection, flood risk-management, and looming sediment deficits are common issues facing coastal communities around the world.