State role and involvement in determining wetland mitigation performance standards in the United States

Wetlands are important ecosystems that contribute to the sustainability of global ecosystems and provide ecosystem functions and services to human civilization. However, many anthropogenic land use practices have led to the degradation of wetlands, making them globally imperiled ecosystems. Within the United States, wetland mitigation is a federally regulated restoration strategy that offsets and compensates for impacts on aquatic resources through restoration. Performance standards assess post-restoration ecosystem development and help regulate management actions. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the organization and interactions of states and federal agencies in determining wetland mitigation performance standards. Using a mixed method approach, including semi-structured interviews and online database reviews, we identify decision-making drivers from the state agency perspective. We develop a ranking classification of state legislation that references performance standards and describes guidance documents by type of authorship. Our findings detail the results of our inquiry into each state’s procedures, including performance standards, revealing diverse management approaches across the nation as states play various implementation and regulatory roles and are driven by collaboration and negotiation among regulators, state and federal legislation, and guidance documents. In addition, we found performance standards most often assess biotic characteristics, with vegetative criteria being the most common. This study synthesizes performance-standard determination and criteria derived from interviews across a spectrum of federal and state participants and a series of guidance documents. We have built a database of these criteria by state and theme to improve our understanding of the dynamic interplay between wetland mitigation science, practice, and policy. Our findings are discussed in the context of the 2023 Sackett vs. United States Environmental Protection Agency ruling.

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