The main objective of this project is to develop a programmatic approach for the rapid assessment of wetland ecosystem services (ES) tools to meet federal, state, and tribal regulatory needs,…

The main objective of this project is to develop a programmatic approach for the rapid assessment of wetland ecosystem services (ES) tools to meet federal, state, and tribal regulatory needs, resulting in the product of a rapid wetland benefits assessment (rwba) tool. The tool will be a module for existing function or condition assessment tools. The study areas will be montana as the primary case study, with a trial application in california and florida. These updated resources will share timely, relevant, and useful information with state wetland program managers, policy makers, elected officials, and others. Activities:specifically, montana state university will: 1. Develop a list of potential wetland services from EPA and international guidance and refine the potential ES list with input from wetland decision-makers, 2. Establish links between wetland structure, functions, and ESS, 3. Create conceptual ES rapid assessment models, 4. Establish and coordinate a regional interagency team to integrate their concerns, priorities, and pathways into regulatory processes, 5. Develop a final rapid wetland benefits assessment module, 6. Establish end-user training framework. 7. Project management. Subrecipient:subawards will be used to expand the use of the project outputs and outcomes from montana (intermontane west) to include california and florida. This will allow project outputs and outcomes to be used nationwide in scope.outcomes:the intended primary beneficiaries of this project are states, tribes, territories and the interest public. Products of this project will include: - results of activities (outputs): the direct physical results of the project will include the following: - peer-reviewed publications of approaches to determine the wetland ecosystem services that are important to regional aquatic land managers and IAT (tasks 1 and 4), - a white paper of a thorough review of similarities and differences in the existing ES assessment tool endpoints, the required data, and resulting metrics. This effort will inform a list of potential conceptual ES models used for this product, and they relate to existing tools (task 3), - a peer-reviewed publication that will link biophysical structure and functions to wetland ES and conceptual models. This work will contain critical ecological and economic theories and applied foundations of the assessment tool. (tasks 3 and 4), - organization and administration of workshops with interagency team to discuss the feasibility of implementing the conceptual models, applying compensatory mitigation for impacts of these services, and iterative refinement of conceptual models (tasks 4), - a draft guidebook to the EPA tier 2 rwba, with justification, literature review, and operational procedures (task 5), - final operational rwba guidebook (task 5), - a framework to develop a future web-based assessment tool populated by all white and peer-reviewed papers and models from the guidebook. (task 5), - training materials that provide case study documents exemplifying case typology (e.g., ayres and knafl 2008, dahlstrom 2014) examples of different wetland types and beneficiaries that this tool will address. (task 6), - training webinars to be housed at the society of wetland scientists or the national association of wetland managers (task 6), and - progress reports to EPA and peer-review teams (task 7). Anticipated environmental improvements (outcomes) the intended effects of the project will advance the consideration of wetland and stream beneficial uses through the following outcomes by increasing our: - understanding of how to define classes of beneficiaries for consideration in ES assessment, - understanding and appreciation of wetland, riparian, ES, and stream beneficial uses and how they can be evaluated, - capacity to relate existing monitoring tools to ES and beneficial use attainme