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Symposium Session Descriptions
Go to Wetlands Tour Descriptions
Managing in the Face of Uncertainty: Planning and Adaptation Strategies to Address Climate Change
Although we know that climate change will affect Southern California in serious ways, most of our conservation efforts still assume that the future will look like the past. How can we plan and manage regional conservation efforts to cope with the impacts of climate change when the timing, intensity and ecological consequences of those impacts are all so unpredictable? Talks in this session will explore potential adaptation strategies for coastal habitats, such as building resistance and resilience into ecosystems, assisting local government in planning for the impacts of climate change, and managing coastal wetlands to accommodate inland migration and survival of their ecological communities.
Conservation Along the Marine-Terrestrial Interface
This session will examine linkages among terrestrial, estuarine, nearshore and ocean habitats through the lens of several projects and objectives of the state’s Ocean Protection Program. One talk, for example, will look at the importance of kelp forests to beach and estuarine habitats and the impacts of human activities in coastal watersheds on the health of kelp ecosystems. Another presentation will discuss methods for assessing the economic value of ecosystem services provided by coastal marine resources, such as salmon and steelhead runs.
Protecting Biodiversity in Urbanizing Landscapes
Urban ecology is the study of how urbanization influences interactions between people and nature in cities. How can insights from this emerging, interdisciplinary field help inform conservation in Southern California---a region whose threats from urbanization have led E.O. Wilson to designate it as one of the world’s 18 biodiversity “hotspots?” Talks during this session will explore various perspectives on the relationships between human and ecological processes in urban settings. They'll include an overview of a long-term urban ecology research project in metropolitan Phoenix, a discussion of the social aspects of restoring bird habitat in urban neighborhoods in Los Angeles, and a look at how practices such as artificial nightlighting and residential fuel management affect wildlife.
Planning and Managing Habitat Restoration Projects
This session is designed to assist practitioners with ideas and approaches for developing and managing better restoration projects. How can science and experience inform us about the practice of restoring, rehabilitating and enhancing habitats in our region? Talks will offer case studies and strategies on such practical issues as preparing a habitat restoration plan, creating a regional adaptive management strategy, and working effectively with consultants and contractors.
Grassroots Education and Outreach
The goal of this session is to identify new strategies for engaging local municipalities, educators and communities in environmental protection and restoration. Session talks include service learning programs, working with elected officials to promote wetlands preservation, enlisting inner city youth and minority groups to work on conservation efforts, and fostering sustainable behavior within a community.
Wetland Restoration Monitoring and Maintenance
Wetland ecosystem responses to global climate change, urbanization and other stressors are increasingly difficult to predict. New threats to wetland habitat loss are identified even in areas where restoration has taken place. A sound monitoring and maintenance program during the early years following a restoration will help to identify and address any problems that may arise before they become fiscally unmanageable. This session will provide an overview of several stream and wetland habitat monitoring and maintenance plans developed over the past few years. These plans will focus on ways to sustain functionality of wetland habitat, native vegetation and endangered species.
Hydrogeomorphology of Southern California: Rocks, Rivers, and Restoration
Over millions of years, California salmonids co-evolved with California geologic processes. This session invites you to explore how regional geology affects the location and function of rivers, wetlands, and habitat. Engaging geologists and engineers will explain how watersheds work, how habitat is formed, why disturbance moves upstream and the importance of considering diverse temporal and spatial scales when planning projects.
Invasive Species: Prevention and Recovery
This session on Invasive Species represents themes other than treatment, which are addressed in a companion session. The subjects of source control initiatives, valuing invasive removal projects, and post removal management, such as revegetation techniques or natural native recruitment, will be addressed by southern California Invasive Species experts. These talks will be followed by a panel discussion with session speakers, where audience questions and participation are encouraged.
Invasive Species Management- Treatment Methods for the Worst Offenders
This session will present a practical “toolbox” of methods for treatment of the most commonly-encountered invasive exotic species in Southern California wetlands and those incipient species that so frequently appear without warning. The species addressed will include riparian invasive plants (Arundo, tamarisk, pampas grass, cape ivy, and palms) and invasive animals (New Zealand mud snail, Quagga mussel, and a Sphaeromatid isopod). Innovative techniques and tried-and-true methods will be presented. A discussion with the panelists will be encouraged.
Steelhead Restoration – Research and Progress in Southern California
Current steelhead trout recovery efforts face an upstream challenge to recover the federally endangered species in the Wetlands Recovery Project area from Point Conception to Tijuana. Challenges include lack of funding, lack of water supply, and lack of habitat availability. This session will focus on prioritization of recovery efforts and use a case study of how to successfully remove a barrier to migration.
Transportation Environmental Mitigation Programs: the High Road for Habitat
New, untraditional transportation tax measures are expanding the vision for resource protection. These measures include targeting funding for habitat acquisition, maintenance and monitoring. This session will highlight two new transportation tax measure mitigation programs – San Diego County’s 2008 TransNet Environmental Mitigation Program and Orange County’s 2011 Measure M. It will explore the potential of these programs to provide for comprehensive, rather than piecemeal, mitigation of the environmental impacts of freeway improvements. The resulting environmental benefits will include habitat protection, wildlife corridors and resource preservation.
Community Based Wetlands Restoration: Lessons Learned in Planning and Project Implementation
Wetland restoration ideally is an activity in which people and communities participate, not just an activity that consultants perform. One of the exciting elements in community based restoration is the notion that the ideal project not only accomplishes meaningful restoration, but is more than just a restoration project – it educates and fosters awareness and stewardship in community members. Organizations implementing these types of small restoration projects, many times with limited capacity within the organization, have unique challenges. The talks in this session will explore some of these challenges and issues by sharing lessons learned in implemented projects.
Current Theories in Tidal Wetlands Restoration/WRP Case Studies
What does tidal wetlands restoration mean in Southern California’s altered landscape? What comprises realistic expectations for ecosystem function restoration? Can tidal wetlands be restored to self-maintaining systems given the altered conditions of the watershed on a larger scale? What are realistic expectations in this regard and what are acceptable levels of ongoing maintenance, dredging or other technical solutions for the long term?
This session will explore these questions and more regarding current theories in tidal wetlands restoration in Southern California through case studies of projects of the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project.
Landscape Ecology: Planning with Patches, Patterns, and Processes
Successful restoration projects incorporate ‘systems thinking’ in their planning stages. In environmental restoration science, systems thinking includes landscape ecology; the study of the interplay between spatial patterns and ecological processes. This session provides an overview of the principals of landscape ecology relative to the coastal Southern California landscape and provides examples of current projects utilizing the principals of landscape ecology.
Watershed Restoration: A Systems Perspective
Each talk in this session will offer a different perspective on how "fixing a problem" means more than just looking at the location where the symptoms appear. Talks will show the importance of a watershed-scale approach--understanding alterations to hydrology and sediment delivery, together with ecological and social considerations--with the common thread that problems (and their solutions) are rarely understood and corrected just at the site where they are first observed.
Low Impact Development and Urban Restoration
Low Impact Development is defined as a comprehensive land planning and engineering design approach with a goal of maintaining and enhancing the pre-development hydrologic regime of urban and developing watersheds. In practice, LID is interpreted as a more sustainable storm water management system. This session will examine the land use side of LID and whether implementation of LID standards will result in any net benefit to open space. In other words, what is LID beyond structural BMPs? Speakers will address ‘green’, as in open space, solutions to urban water quality problems.
Fire Ecology
Fire Ecology examines the role of fire in ecosystems. This session will also give some details as to how fire affects species and habitat unique to wetland areas. Speakers will discuss the origins of fire, factors that influence a fire’s spread and intensity, and fire’s relationship with our ecosystem. Panel representatives include city employees, educators, environmentalists and the Forest Service. Discussion topics include fuel modification plans, preserving native plants, type conversion issues, post-fire erosion control and stream bank stabilization, relocating at risk species and the effects that fire has on terrestrial and aquatic habitat.Low Impact Development and Urban Restoration
Low Impact Development is defined as a comprehensive land planning and engineering design approach with a goal of maintaining and enhancing the pre-development hydrologic regime of urban and developing watersheds. In practice, LID is interpreted as a more sustainable storm water management system. This session will examine the land use side of LID and whether implementation of LID standards will result in any net benefit to open space. In other words, what is LID beyond structural BMPs? Speakers will address ‘green’, as in open space, solutions to urban water quality problems.
Restoration Issues and Uncertainties Workshop
Many coastal wetlands will be in the process of being restored in the next 10 years. What are the key questions that remain to be answered when designing and implementing these projects? One such uncertainty is the determination of the types of habitats to be included in the project and their spatial distribution through the site. Many different factors feed into this decision, but currently the existing distribution of different habitat types, along with various site constraints, have the strongest influences. However, wetland ecologists and managers agree that regional restoration goals should be incorporated into site-specific restoration plans. Establishing clear regional restoration goals has been problematic, however, in large part because of the lack of good information about the historical extent and distribution of different wetland habitat types. This session will explore the question of regional habitat goals through both historical and contemporary ecology, will discuss a regional habitat goals program developed in the Bay Area, and will also provide a panel discussion to help identify the next restoration uncertainty that should be tackled by scientists and managers.
Regional Wetlands Assessment and Monitoring
Neither the progress of regional wetland ecosystem recovery, nor the continued loss and degradation of wetlands from rapid urbanization, has been quantified in southern California, despite large expenditures on routine wetland and stream monitoring. Several regional programs are currently underway to map the extent and condition of wetlands. These programs include historical ecology studies, regional wetlands assessment, regional wetlands mapping, and several tools that can be used by restoration practitioners to conduct monitoring and mapping. These programs will provide data to better inform management decisions, standardize data protocols to improve coordination between agencies and programs, and generate information that can be used to assess the effectiveness of wetland programs and funding.
Science to Support Restoration Planning
This session will present several exciting new scientific studies and tools that will assist in the planning of wetland restoration projects. The topics of sediment toxicity in urban and treatment wetlands, a habitat planning tool developed by NOAA, and integrating stream bioassessment with wetland assessment will be discussed.
Wetlands Tours
NOTE: Tours will take place on May 6th. Pick-up for all tours will be at 1pm. Pick-up for all tours will be at the Sofia Hotel, with all departures at 1pm. Please be at the lobby/hotel front no later than 12:45 pm to allow time for van loading. Tours will last from 1-6pm. Lunches will not be provided. Tours are limited to 25 people per tour.
Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve
Tijuana Estuary is an impressive inter-tidal coastal estuary on the international border between California and Mexico. It is one of the few salt marshes remaining in Southern California. The site is an essential breeding, feeding and nesting ground and key stopover point on the Pacific Flyway for over 370 species of migratory and native birds, including six endangered species.
The Reserve offers four miles of walking trails, taking visitors into prime bird watching areas and down to the river mouth where the Tijuana River meets the Pacific Ocean. The tour will include a trip to the Visitor’s Center and the Goat Canyon sediment basin. It will also include a trip to the Monument Mesa, a memorial originally placed on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in 1851, just after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. The monument delineates the western beginning of the International Border.
The South Bay Salt Ponds
In addition to successful salt production, the salt ponds of South Bay provide irreplaceable habitat for many bird species. Each year, these birds use the ponds to nest, feed, and roost. It is one of the few large areas remaining along the highly urbanized southern California Coast where large populations can gather. In 1994, the salt ponds were used by 522,553 birds including 312,000 shorebirds, 70,000 waterfowl, and 64,000 seabirds. Historically, San Diego Bay was once one of the richest wildlife resources along the California/Baja coast. The Bay was host to a wealth of native wildlife including osprey, halibut, mussels, lobster, and whales.
The open water also provides critical wintering habitat for migratory waterfowl. In the winter, South Bay is heavily used by migrating and wintering birds including: 79,000 waterfowl and 10,000 seabirds. Without South Bay, these birds have few options for areas in which to rest, feed and prepare for migration. Please join us, as the Salt Ponds are only accessible via USFWS guided tours!
The San Dieguito Lagoon Restoration Project
The San Dieguito Lagoon was once the largest of the six San Diego coastal lagoons, and has the largest watershed. The marsh area alone is believed to have been over 600 acres, while the entire lagoon probably covered 1,000 acres.
Over the years, San Dieguito was subjected to major filling activities and lost over half of its marshes. The extensive San Dieguito Wetlands Restoration Project includes the following elements: 1) tidal inlet maintenance to promote regular tidal exchange through excavation of the river channel and periodic maintenance dredging (no physical structures would be constructed at the inlet or on the beach to maintain an open channel); 2) excavation of tidal and upland areas to create subtidal and intertidal habitat; 3) creation of seasonal salt marsh; 4) provision of up to 19 acres within the project area for the creation of nesting habitat for the California least tern and western snowy plover; 5) construction of berms within the river's effective flow area in order to maintain the existing sediment flows within the river and to the beach (it is important to note that these berms are not intended to serve as flood control devices); 6) dredge disposal sites within the project boundary; 7) restoration of native habitat to non-tidal areas surrounding the wetland restoration project; and 8) creation of public access trails and opportunities for interpretation.
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