This project is conducted under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' Coastal Environmental Baseline Program; part of the national Oceans Protection Plan. The project collects baseline data on saltmarshes within the Port of Saint John study area which are tidally influenced, and which impact marine ecosystems by the various ecosystem services they provide; including absorbing water in storm events and reducing erosion and runoff into the marine environment, filtering chemicals and sediment out of water before it is discharged into the ocean, and providing food and habitat for wildlife. The focus of the baseline evaluation will be to follow the Wetland Ecosystem Services Protocol for Atlantic Canada (WESP-AC), developed by Dr. Paul Adamus (Oregon State University) and the New Brunswick Department of Environment and Local Government (Adamus, P., 2018). In order to rapidly characterize the ecosystem services of wetlands within the study area, as well as to collect species data (including invasive species). The standardized protocol involves a desktop assessment and a field visit to each wetland.
The dataset contains a Tidal WESP-AC spreadsheet (.xlsx) for each wetland, a species spreadsheet (.csv), and a geodatabase (.gdb) of wetland boundaries, a centroid, monitoring tracks, and boundary of the Port of Saint John study area.
Field visits were done in 2021 on the following dates: Hospital wetland (July 13), Spruce Lake Stream wetland (July 27), Quarry wetland (July 28), Mosquito Cove wetland (July 28), Randolph Island wetland (Aug 11), Belmont wetland (Aug 12), Ragged Point wetland (Aug 12), Bay Street wetland (Aug 12), and Martinon Beach wetland (Aug 12).
REFERENCE:
Paul Adamus (2018), Chapter 4.3.2 - WESP (Wetland Ecosystem Services Protocol): A Suite of Regionalized RAMs. Editor(s): John Dorney, Rick Savage, Ralph W. Tiner, Paul Adamus. Wetland and Stream Rapid Assessments. Academic Press. Pages 343-351. ISBN 9780128050910. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-805091-0.00011-6.
