Data from: Evaluating the costs and benefits of marsh-management strategies while accounting for uncertain sea-level rise and ecosystem response

Prioritization of marsh-management strategies is a difficult task as it requires a manager to evaluate the relative benefits of each strategy given uncertainty in future sea-level rise and in dynamic marsh response. A modeling framework to evaluate the costs and benefits of management strategies while accounting for both of these uncertainties has been developed. The base data for the tool are high-resolution uncertainty-analysis results from SLAMM (the Sea-Level Affecting Marshes Model) under different adaptive-management strategies. These results are combined with an ecosystem-valuation assessment from stakeholders. Model results and stakeholder values are linked together using "utility functions" that characterize the relationship between stakeholder values and geometric metrics such as "marsh area," marsh edge," or "marsh width." The expected-value of each site's ecosystem benefits can then be calculated and compared using estimated costs for each strategy. Estimates of optimal marsh-management strategies may then be produced, maximizing the "ecosystem benefits per estimated costs" ratio.盐沼管理策略的优先级排序是一项极具挑战性的工作，管理者需在未来海平面上升及盐沼动态响应均存在不确定性的前提下，评估各项策略的相对效益。本研究已开发出一种可同时兼顾这两类不确定性的管理策略成本与效益评估建模框架。该工具的基础数据源自不同适应性管理策略下，SLAMM（海平面影响盐沼模型，Sea-Level Affecting Marshes Model）生成的高分辨率不确定性分析结果。研究将上述结果与利益相关方开展的生态系统价值评估结果进行整合，通过效用函数将模型结果与利益相关方的价值偏好进行关联——该效用函数可表征利益相关方价值与“盐沼面积”“盐沼岸线”“盐沼宽度”等几何指标之间的关系。随后可计算各研究区域生态系统效益的期望值，并结合各项策略的预估成本开展对比分析，最终可生成最优盐沼管理策略的预估方案，实现“单位预估成本对应的生态系统效益”比值的最大化。