Wetland ecosystem services and coupled socioeconomic benefits through conservation practices in the Appalachian Region

Abstract

The adjacency of agriculture and water resources is, perhaps, nowhere more prevalent than it is in Appalachia, USA. Agricultural activities have documented impacts on the ability of wetlands and other aquatic systems to provide ecosystem services; in order to diminish and/or mitigate these impacts, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) carries out resource assessment and place‐based conservation planning on agricultural lands. We contend that a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of restoration of wetland ecosystem services within an agricultural landscape should include both ecological and socioeconomic metrics, as follows: (1) the amount and type of ecosystem services most at risk, and restored by NRCS conservation program investment; (2) a spatially based assessment of the replacement/addition of ecosystem services from both an ecological and a socioeconomic perspective; and (3) consideration of ecosystem service replacement in context with adjacent land use and population dynamics as a preliminary consideration of differential value. We utilize the Appalachian Region as a demonstration of these necessary elements in assessing the effectiveness of the conservation/restoration investments made over the period of 2000–2006. We identified a total of 1.7 million ha (4.2 million acres) of wetland polygons, with ∼17% located in an agricultural setting. We developed a classification crosswalk and utilize Hydrogeomorphic Functional Assessment models to demonstrate the relative investment of the 522 583 ha (1 291 330 acres) of wetland‐relevant practices across a suite of ecosystem services, with a heavy investment in the nutrient‐cycling functions. We examined conservation program implementation in a classification scheme that allocates counties into Urban, Rural, Mixed‐Urban, and Mixed‐Rural categories based on population characteristics, and assessed the relationship between wetland conservation program application and population dynamics. We found Mixed‐Urban and Mixed‐Rural counties to have the most wetland in agricultural settings that could be targeted for conservation measures. However, conservation practices have been applied mostly in the Mixed‐Rural and Rural counties, indicating a potential overinvestment in the latter. When total acres of conservation measures are examined over a gradient of both urban and total population growth rates, we do not see a concomitant increase in the application of wetland conservation practices, and program investment appears relatively random.