MA6 NRDA: Injuries, Pathway, and Restoration
Room 18A/B, Level 4
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Monday, 10 November 2003
Chair: Brosnan, Tom ,
Co-chair: Mancini, Gene ,
(057) Determining habitat valuation for use in the Habitat Equivalency Analysis (HEA) model in Natural Resource Damage Assessments.
Johns, D1, Saban, L1, Luxon, M1, Welsch, M1, 1 Windward Environmental, Seattle, WA, USA
ABSTRACT- Natural resource damage (NRD) claims associated with injured resources are increasingly being resolved by replacing the injured resources (and the services provided by those resources) with restored or created resources. The Habitat Equivalency Analysis (HEA) model is used to determine the amount of restoration required to compensate for injured resources. The HEA model approximates the ecological services lost due to the injury and the services gained due to restoration. One of the parameters in this model is a comparative valuation between habitat types. NOAA has developed a habitat valuation method to rank estuarine habitat types according to their functional importance to juvenile chinook salmon, juvenile English sole, and bird assemblages for the Commencement Bay area. This method is based on the available information on the habitat needs and utilization of these representative species and the limiting habitats in the Commencement Bay ecosystem. This valuation may drive particular restoration projects (for example, intertidal is valued higher than subtidal habitat) to obtain the most credit to offset injuries. This presentation examines the derivation of NOAAs habitat valuation and proposes alternative methods for valuation in various ecosystems.
Key words: HEA, NRDA, habitat, restoration