This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub small-scale study - "Towards a consolidated and open-science framework for restoration monitoring". No data outputs were generated by this project.

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Coastal habitat restoration is scaling up rapidly in Australia and covers a range of habitats including oyster reefs, seagrass meadows, mangrove forests, kelp forests, and saltmarshes. Every restoration project includes some attempt at monitoring outcomes but currently these are piecemeal, uncoordinated, often poorly funded, and rarely follow Open Science protocols.

Previous NESP-funded projects have improved understanding of the ecology and service provision of threatened ecosystems and established targets for repair based on reference conditions (e.g. Marine Biodiversity Hub project B4). They have also established an extensive database of marine and coastal restoration projects (Australian Coastal Restoration Network: project E5), and have supported the development of monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement systems (MERI) for various sectors or projects. By combining the knowledge of all Australian researchers undertaking monitoring of restoration projects, across multiple habitats, this project builds upon these previous projects to synthesise the approaches for monitoring of habitat restoration. It explores integration of new technologies, such as automation, artificial intelligence, and eDNA, within the monitoring framework to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

The primary output of this project is a co-ordinated and open-science framework for restoration monitoring across projects, scales and habitats, that integrates clearly articulated hypotheses to determine the goals for restoration. This framework streamlines the development of future restoration projects and ensures that maximum value from monitoring activities is achieved.

Outputs

• Best-practice toolkit / final project report [written]