Multi-habitat Restoration

Marine and coastal environments are complex and dynamic ecosystems that are vital to the health, biodiversity and productivity of our planet. However, our seascapes are experiencing widespread decline worldwide due to multiple, interacting stressors. As a result, attention is turning to scaling up restoration efforts, which will necessitate a multi-habitat focus to truly restore diverse, interconnected and resilient ecosystems.

Here at the Oxford Seascape Ecology Lab, we have termed this “ecoscape restoration” - meaning the consideration of landscapes and seascapes in tandem and at large geographical scales. Ecoscape restoration will enable true ecosystem recovery across multiple habitats and land-sea boundaries, involving offshore, nearshore, coastal, estuarine, watershed, and land activities as needed. We are studying integrated land-sea approaches to ecosystem restoration (for example across seagrass, saltmarsh, oyster reef and adjacent terrestrial habitats) to establish a widely applicable foundation for scalable approaches that support integrated multi-habitat coastal ecosystem restoration and nature recovery. This theoretical and applied foundation will deliver strong evidence for tangible policy change.

Using a combination of modelling, field and interview-based assessments (with local stakeholders and experts), our research approach aims to facilitates restoration to occur without conflicting with existing uses and be positioned to best serve local communities. We also work to bridge science-to-policy knowledge gaps by providing spatially explicit and easily accessible information on potential restoration sites for project managers and decision makers.