Final technical report - Baseline characterization of sandy beach ecosystems in California's North-Central Coast Region

Sandy beaches are among the most intensely used coastal ecosystems for human recreation and are important to coastal economies, foraging shorebirds and surf zone fishes. Sandy beach habitat composes 51% of the 592 km of shoreline in the North‐Central Coast (NCC) region but little more than 10% of the available sandy beach habitat in the region was protected in three Marina Protected Areas (MPAs). The goal of this ecological characterization was to provide a quantitative, baseline description of sandy beach ecosystems in the region from which future ecological changes may be assessed, and to document any differences that may already exist between sandy beaches within and outside of MPAs. We also recommend ecological indicators for targeted, cost‐effective assessments and developed two citizen‐scientist protocols. This report was originally uploaded to Oceanspaces (http://oceanspaces.org/) in 2013 as part of the North Central Coast baseline monitoring program. In 2020 the baseline data and reports were uploaded to the California Ocean Protection Council Data Repository by Mike Esgro ([e-mail]) and Rani Gaddam ([e-mail]). Every attempt has been made to include all of the original data, metadata, and reports submitted in 2013, but please contact the Data Set Contacts with any questions.沙质海滩是人类休闲活动利用强度最高的海岸生态系统之一，对沿海经济、觅食滨鸟以及潮带鱼类均具有重要价值。中北海岸（North‐Central Coast, NCC）区域的592公里海岸线中，沙质海滩生境占比达51%，但该区域内仅略超10%的可利用沙质海滩生境受到三处海洋保护区（Marine Protected Areas, MPAs）的保护。本次生态特征表征研究的目标，是为该区域的沙质海滩生态系统提供量化基线描述，以支撑未来生态变化的评估工作，并记录保护区内外沙质海滩间已存在的潜在差异。本研究同时推荐了适用于靶向性、高成本效益评估的生态指标，并制定了两套公民科学研究方案。本报告最初于2013年作为中北海岸基线监测计划的组成部分，上传至Oceanspaces平台（http://oceanspaces.org/）。2020年，Mike Esgro（邮箱：[e-mail]）与Rani Gaddam（邮箱：[e-mail]）将基线数据与相关报告上传至加州海洋保护委员会数据仓库。本数据集已尽可能完整收录2013年提交的全部原始数据、元数据及报告，如有任何疑问，请联系数据集联系人。