Inventory of ecological restoration projects on the coast of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, East German Baltic coast

Within the ECAS-Baltic project , we investigated coastal ecological restoration projects on the German Baltic Coast in the State of Mecklenburg- Western Pomerania. The restoration of near natural coastal hydrological regimes, flood plains and habitats, often involving coastal maanged retreat, is currently being performed for a number of conservation purposes (e.g., climate mitigation, habitat protection and restoration) and contribute to a more resilient coast. The articulation of these closely related goals is an interesting avenue for regional planing and coastal zone management, especially where planed measures are polemic and social acceptance fraught with obstacles. Our goals are: to produce a comprehensive and systematic inventory of coastal restoration projects involving (plans for) MR, to describe the projects identified with a focus on decision-making, planing and implementation, to determine factors that facilitate / hinder their successful implementation, and to reflect on MR potential for coastal zone management and regional planning. We developed a methodology to formalize rich, locally situated empirical data from practitioners to draw lessons learnt from past experiences and identify generic strategies towards resilient coastal land management. Our inventory includes 110 wetland restoration projects (as known up to June 2024), the majority of which (102) are located on agricultural polders on the inner coast of the eastern part of the state. All 110 projects attend conservation goals, such as the restoration of natural coastal processes and coastal habitats, in particular mires, reed beds and salt meadows. Secondary goals include the compensation of the environmental impacts of developments (37), and the optimisation of flood protection (22). In total, 90 projects involved some form of MR, 16 of which explicitly considered MR as a way to increase coastal resilience and reduce dike maintenance costs. 44 MR projects have either been implemented or are currently being implemented or planned, with the smallest project covering 25 ha and the largest 1.700 ha. 22 out of these 44 MR projects have been carried out to compensate the construction of transport (8), coastal protection (6), energy (6) and industrial (2) infrastructure. Our detailed inventory at subnational scale demonstrates that MR is far more commonly implemented than currently documented in the literature. It further helps to visualise current geographical patterns of distribution of ecological restoration projects at the coast of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and highlights significant potential for further projects, particularly on the coast east of the city of Rostock. With stronger impacts of climate change, increasing sea-levels and subsiding agricultural land (due, among other causes, to the mineralisation of peatlands as a consequence of reclamation), the need for a long-term strategy for the adaptation of agricultural polders becomes imminent.