The right wetland in the right place – from science to implementation

Historical drainage of natural wetlands has caused many environmental problems. Today, wetlands are re-established and constructed in new places to deliver ecosystem services including mitigating eutrophication, flood and drought control, preventing biodiversity loss and carbon storage. However, there can be trade-offs between different environmental goals. For example, wetlands can be significant greenhouse gas (GHG) sources, and actions aiming at aiding one threatened species disfavour another. Despite large investments in wetland creation, there is inadequate monitoring of wetland multifunctionality. Critically, we lack sufficient studies of wetland efficiency, especially over the long-term. Thus the evidence for multifunctionality and wetland functioning over time is inadequate to support robust decision making. It is important to build the evidence base needed to provide society with well-based recommendations to ensure that more effective and sustainable wetlands are implemented, the environmental goals can be reached and state funds can be used efficiently.

Wetlands are complex and changing ecosystems and my research aims to understand temporal patterns and drivers for synergies and trade-offs in flow reduction, nutrient retention and climate impacts (GHG emissions and carbon storage). My goal is to ensure we implement the right wetland in the right place, where individual wetland design is optimised to promote synergies and avoid trade-offs in a multifunctional wetlandscape. There are still design gaps to fill that could be addressed with state of the art high-frequency monitoring, e.g. to determine how much water a wetland can receive and still retain high nutrient performance, how water level and water quality influence whether wetlands are GHG sources or sinks. Understanding the climate impacts of constructed wetlands is crucial for their societal acceptance. It is also important to follow the implementation process in order to evaluate possible obstacles in current legislation as well as goal conflicts if we are to convince the society to create more wetlands.

In my lecture, I will present my contribution to developing the Swedish evidence base for trends and factors affecting wetlands nutrient retention performance and show how this is translated into a web-based mapping tool to support effective wetland creation. This tool gives stakeholders the ability to apply scientific knowledge to practical questions about designing and building cost efficient future wetlands. It highlights the power of maps to visualise local conditions and provides decision support for creating the right wetland in the right place. Overall this presentation will highlight the current and future evidence base needed to provide guidelines on maintenance, risk assessments and decision support to weigh goal conflicts and minimise trade-offs. A key aspect of my future research will be to collect and analyse detailed high-frequency sensor data to understand rapid or short temporal changes in wetland performance. This will require a combination of advanced technologies, data management for quality control and big data analysis with machine learning. My future research will promote a holistic perspective crossing natural and social sciences. I will continue to address ways in which society’s needs and the ecosystem services delivered by well designed and maintained wetlands can be connected focusing on climate adaptation, clean water and environmentally responsible food production. I will continue to develop solutions to overcome institutional barriers and to communicate my science to stakeholders, academics and practitioners. One of my main goals is to create better linkage between upstream and downstream landowners to implement forest flood mitigation measures needed to protect downstream arable fields, cities and waterways, reduce damage to infrastructure, improve water quality and support sustainable food production.