Flood mitigation and protection of coastal infrastructure are key elements of coastal management decisions. Similarly, regulating and provisioning roles of coastal habitats have increasingly prompted policy makers to consider the value of ecosystem goods and services in these same decisions, broadly defined as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems.” We applied these principles to a study at three earthen levees used for flood protection. By restricting tidal flows, the levees degraded upstream wetlands, either by reducing salinity, creating standing water, and/or by supporting monocultures of invasive variety Phragmites australis. The wetlands, located at Greenwich, NJ, on Delaware Bay, were evaluated for restoration in this study. If unrestricted tidal flow were reestablished with mobile gates or similar devices, up to 226 ha of tidal salt marsh would be potentially restored to Spartina spp. dominance. Using existing literature and a value transfer approach, the estimated total economic value (TEV) of goods and services provided annually by these 226 ha of restored wetlands ranged from $2,058,182 to $2,390,854 y⁻¹. The associated annual engineering cost for including a mobile gate system to fully restore tidal flows to the upstream degraded wetlands was about $1,925,614 y⁻¹ resulting in a benefit-cost ratio range of 0.98–1.14 over 50 years (assuming no wetland benefits realized during the first 4 years). Thus, inclusion of a cost-effective mobile gate system in any engineering design to improve long-term flood resilience in the region would produce dual benefits of protecting people and property from major storms, while preserving and enhancing ecosystem values.

沿海基础设施的防洪和保护是沿海管理决策的关键要素。同样，沿海栖息地的调节和供应作用越来越促使政策制定者在这些决策中考虑生态系统产品和服务的价值，广义定义为“人们从生态系统中获得的利益”。我们将这些原则应用于三个用于防洪的土堤的研究。通过限制潮汐流，堤坝使上游湿地退化，这要么通过降低盐度，产生积水，和/或通过支持入侵品种芦苇的单一栽培. 在这项研究中，对位于特拉华湾新泽西州格林威治的湿地进行了恢复评估。如果使用移动闸门或类似设备重新建立不受限制的潮汐流，多达 226 公顷的潮汐盐沼可能会恢复到Spartina spp。支配地位。使用现有文献和价值转移方法，这 226 公顷恢复湿地每年提供的商品和服务的估计总经济价值 (TEV) 从 $2,058,182 到 $2,390,854 y ^-1不等。包括移动闸门系统以完全恢复上游退化湿地的潮汐流量的相关年度工程成本约为 $1,925,614 y ^-1导致 50 年的收益成本比范围为 0.98-1.14（假设在前 4 年没有实现湿地收益）。因此，在任何工程设计中包含具有成本效益的移动闸门系统以提高该地区的长期洪水恢复能力，将产生双重好处，即保护人员和财产免受重大风暴的影响，同时保护和提高生态系统价值。