Abstract
Wetlands are among the most productive and ecologically valuable ecosystems in the world. To mitigate the dramatic loss of wetlands and its ecosystem services huge amounts of resources has been put on restoring and creating wetlands in Sweden. Half of the 16 environmental quality objectives set by the Swedish parliament are related to wetlands; the major goals being to increase biodiversity, water quality and retention of nutrients leaking from agriculture. Still, we do not know whether the goals are reached and whether different goals may be in conflict. By using the large amounts of voluntarily reported citizen science data from the Swedish Species Gateway we will for the first time be able to fully evaluate effects of performed wetland restorations and creations. We will: (1) Produce robust data on the long-term effects of different restoration measures on wetland bird communities in different landscape types and wetland networks (2) Develop new general tools to extract reliable population data from the Swedish Species Gateway. (3) Investigate and identify possible synergies and conflicts between restoration goals for biodiversity (birds and macrophytes) and ecosystem services (water quality and nutrient retention). (4) Develop bird indicators for Swedish wetland birds for use in evaluations of national environmental objectives. (5) Build a restoration network among authorities and a restoration database for use in evidence-based conservation and management.
Sweden