Standard Presentation (12 minutes) Australian Marine Sciences Association 2025 Conference

Accounting for the Benefits of Hydrological Restoration of a Sothern Tasmanian Saltmarsh: Richmond Park Case Study. (120635)

Victor Shelamoff 1 , Matthew Cameron 1 , Cayne Layton 1 , Paul Carnell 2 , Darla Hatton MacDonald 3 , Vishnu Prahalad 4
  1. Blue Conservation Services, Howrah, TAS, Australia
  2. School of Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  3. School of Buisness and Economics, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia
  4. School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, Univeristy of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia

Environmental Economic accounting aims to integrate environmental and economic data and provides a useful approach to communicate the value of restoration to a range of stakeholders. We adopted the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) framework to better assess the multifaceted benefits of restoration activity involving the removal of a bund wall to return the natural hydrological regime to a degraded saltmarsh ecosystem at Richmond Park, within the Coal River catchment in Southern Tasmania. Accounts were developed using a suite of environmental monitoring data across the degraded and healthy regions within the site, both before and after the removal of the bund wall, along with survey data. These accounts allowed for the evaluation of changes in ecosystem extent and condition as well as the biodiversity and other ecosystem services resulting from the restoration activities. Using Richmond Park as a case study, we will discuss our approach to SEEA, from project scoping and framing, decision making around account design and data collection and account compilation to highlight challenges, benefits and applicability of this approach to the restoration activity and to share key learnings.