7 Jan 2025

Applying the Ecosystem Goods and Services (EGS) Framework: Meramec Case Study

Abstract: This technical report explores ecosystem goods and services (EGS) assessment to support US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) decision-making by applying the recently published proposed EGS framework (Wainger et al. 2020) to a case study. A joint effort of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and USACE, the Meramec River Basin Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study provides an opportunity to investigate the practicality of EGS analysis and how it might determine complementarity or antagonism among study partner goals. The EPA seeks primarily to protect human health, while USACE aims to restore aquatic ecosystems. Subjected to elevated heavy metals from upstream mining, altered hydrology, and other degrading factors, the river system nevertheless supports high aquatic biodiversity and numerous rare species. The project team developed an EGS conceptual model to document the potential ecological features and processes changes, ecological outcomes, and social benefits or harms of proposed management actions. Nonmonetary EGS benefit indicators illustrated concordance of the project goals with national restoration priorities. Overall, this initial analysis indicates that EGS analysis is feasible with the types of models and data available for the project, promotes explicit analysis of synergies and conflicts, and helps communicate effects and trade-offs during planning.