Extensive salt marsh restoration is expected in the northern Gulf of Mexico over the next several decades, funded in part by settlements from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Understanding the ecological benefits of restored marshes over time is integral to setting appropriate restoration targets and performance criteria and in determining the restoration area needed to achieve desired restoration goals and offset quantified natural resource injuries. We present a method for quantifying anticipated ecological benefits associated with marsh restoration projects, particularly marsh creation or enhancement through the placement of dredged material, in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Using salt marsh vegetation (percent cover, aboveground biomass, and belowground biomass) and indicator faunal species (periwinkle snails and amphipods) as representative marsh community components, we used resource equivalency analysis (REA) to model projected ecological benefits over time and quantified total net project benefits for a hypothetical marsh creation project in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. Sensitivity analysis of the resulting model suggests that the recovery trajectories for each marsh component were the most important drivers of modeled restoration benefits and that model uncertainty was greatest for marsh fauna, which has limited data availability compared to marsh vegetation and high natural variability. Longer-term monitoring at restored restoration sites and/or targeted monitoring of older restoration projects would reduce variability in the recovery trajectories for the marsh community components examined in this case study and improve the reliability of the REA model for projecting benefits associated with salt marsh restoration.

预计在未来几十年内，墨西哥湾北部将进行大规模的盐沼恢复，部分资金来自2010年“深水地平线”的定居点漏油事件。了解随时间推移恢复的湿地的生态效益，对于确定适当的恢复目标和性能标准以及确定实现所需恢复目标和抵消量化的自然资源伤害所需的恢复区域至关重要。我们提出了一种方法，用于量化与墨西哥湾北部沼泽修复项目相关的预期生态效益，尤其是通过放置疏material材料而产生或增强的沼泽。使用盐沼植被（覆盖率，地上生物量和地下生物量）和指示性动物物种（长春蜗牛和两栖动物）作为代表性的沼泽社区组成部分，我们使用资源当量分析（REA）来对一段时间内预计的生态效益进行建模，并对路易斯安那州巴拉塔里亚湾的一个假设的沼泽创建项目量化总项目净收益。所得模型的敏感性分析表明，每个沼泽组成部分的恢复轨迹是模拟恢复效益的最重要驱动力，并且沼泽动物区系的模型不确定性最大，与沼泽植被相比，数据可用性有限且自然变异性高。