![]() ![]() 2004) and human health (Magnien 2001 Birch et al. ![]() Nitrogen and phosphorus are the two major nutrient pollutants of concern in the Chesapeake Bay in terms of natural resource (Boesch, Brinsfield, and Magnien 2001 Hagy et al. Given that oyster reef ecosystem services are a public good, restoration has mostly been conducted as a public enterprise funded by taxpayer dollars, and thus, may be severely constrained by static or declining state and federal budgets.Ī potential alternative mechanism to fund oyster restoration in the Chesapeake Bay (the Bay) arose in December 2010 when the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) instituted total maximum daily load (TMDL) levels for nitrogen and phosphorus in the Bay to combat their degrading effects on the environment (Environmental Protection Agency 2011). Oysters are dominant ecosystem engineers 1 that provide diverse benefits to marine and estuarine species, including food, refuge from predators, and buffers from physical stress (Luckenbach, Mann, and Wesson 1995). Restoring oyster reefs is a primary goal of large-scale coastal ecosystem restoration programs, such as in the Chesapeake Bay (Chesapeake Bay Program 2014a) and Gulf of Mexico (Brown et al. Our findings suggest that, along with harvest, the regulating services of denitrification and nutrient sequestration lead to positive net benefits in a majority of scenarios analyzed, although local environmental conditions play a prominent role in the ultimate outcomes. We investigate the role that nutrient credits for ecosystem services provided by restored oyster reefs can play in optimally managing oyster reef complexes by developing a coupled bioeconomic model of oyster reef growth and harvest. However, the denitrification and nutrient sequestration associated with oyster reefs has recently been a topic of much biological research. Historically, nutrient trading programs have been restricted to credits between point sources or for agricultural mitigation technologies, such as the planting of cover crops. As part of their strategy to meet total maximum daily load restrictions in the Chesapeake Bay, managers have developed nutrient trading markets to curb nitrogen and phosphorus flows into the estuarine system. ![]()
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