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EVENSON_GREY_DISSERTATION_FINAL.pdf (4.82 MB)

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A Process-Comprehensive Simulation-Optimization Framework for Watershed Scale Wetland Restoration Planning

Evenson, Grey Rogers
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406213250

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Geography.
Wetlands provide an array of important ecosystem services yet exhibit a continuously declining resource stock. Restoration efforts that mean to maintain or reserve wetland losses via ecosystem construction or rehabilitation frequently fail. These restoration failures are commonly attributed to the devaluation of an array of watershed scale processes as impacting restoration outcomes. Watershed scale restoration planning methods have been advocated as a means of prioritizing restoration sites within a landscape-context to account for these processes and thereby improve upon the probability of restoration success. These methods, however, have evolved within distinct literatures to emphasize only certain process as impacting restoration priorities. Established wetland restoration planning procedures are therefore incapable of evaluating the full suite of processes impacting restoration outcomes. This dissertation proposes a generalized simulation-optimization framework to prioritize wetland restoration sites while evaluating hydrologic, climatic, geomorphologic, biologic and human processes. This dissertation demonstrates the an implementation of the framework for the approximately 400 km 2 Sandy Creek Watershed in Northeast Ohio. A genetic algorithm (GA) is coupled with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and a graph-theory based wetland network model evaluated by both overland and hydrologic connectivity metrics. Four objective functions are defined to discover restoration plans that maximize peak flow reductions, minimize plan cost, maximize inter-wetland hydrologic connectivity, and maximize inter-wetland overland connectivity. Execution of the planning procedure reveals trade-off and non-correlative relationships between multiple objectives and associated process. Evaluation of the evaluated objective functions in isolation, as is characteristic of established planning procedures, may therefore propagate inefficient plans that induce additional restoration failures. The methodology demonstrated within this dissertation represents an important advance in wetland restoration planning methods that will improve wetland restoration outcomes while evaluating interrelationships between processes as relevant to wetland ecosystems.
Ningchuan Xaio (Advisor)
Bryan Mark (Committee Member)
Steven Gordon (Committee Member)
253 p.
Environmental Management; Water Resource Management

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Evenson, G. R. (2014). A Process-Comprehensive Simulation-Optimization Framework for Watershed Scale Wetland Restoration Planning [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406213250

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Evenson, Grey. A Process-Comprehensive Simulation-Optimization Framework for Watershed Scale Wetland Restoration Planning. 2014. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406213250.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Evenson, Grey. "A Process-Comprehensive Simulation-Optimization Framework for Watershed Scale Wetland Restoration Planning." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406213250

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1406213250
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.