ERDC TN-EMRRP-EM-10, Ecological Forecasting Tools and Planning of Ecosystem Restoration Projects

PURPOSE: A wide variety of ecological forecasting tools are used to support the project planning process within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). These tools range from relatively simple empirical relations describing the expected habitat preferences of species (or guilds of species) to complex, dynamic models of water movement, sediment, and other material fluxes to behavior-based models of individual organisms (agent-based models) and spatially-explicit tool(s) that address habitat and landscape mosaics (e.g., Guisan and Zimmermann 2000). Models or tools from across this spectrum have played important roles at various points in the planning process within the USACE, but district level planners have faced major challenges in finding and applying suitable ecological forecasting tools, especially for smaller (e.g., Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) Section 1135) projects which may be funded by less than $100,000 ($5 million maximum) and which are allowed only one or two years for completion (ER-1105-2100). Thus, the choice of a specific tool in many planning applications has been based on factors (i.e., project size, funding, duration) not directly related to a formal, technical evaluation of tool capability or suitability.