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In the past 15 years or more, attitudes toward salt marshes and their value have shifted. A growing movement of restoration activities—such as constructing passages to allow fish to swim upstream or out to sea, replacing culverts to bring back natural tidal flow and removing dams to restore vast stretches of a watershed—is taking place from Cape Cod Bay to the Bay of Fundy. While it remains uncertain precisely how many miles of coastal habitat have been restored over the years, a growing body of research, based on the monitoring of rehabilitated sites, is providing clear evidence of the ecological and economic advantages of restoring marshes.
“This is not just a trend,” says Jon Kachmar, the habitat restoration coordinator for the Gulf of Maine Council. “Salt marsh restoration has gained tremendous momentum as more and more communities recognize how beneficial it is to return essential wetland functions back to healthy coastal ecosystems.”
This map highlights more than 50 restoration projects supported, in part, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and a NOAA/Gulf of Maine Council grants’ program. In addition to this partnership, a diverse array of local, state, federal and private partners have carried many of these projects through the various stages of site evaluation, project design, permitting and construction.