Aligning People, Policy, and Water: Social-Ecological Dimensions of Wetland Restoration in the Great Black Swamp Region

Funded by the Ohio Department of Higher Education Harmful Algal Bloom Research Initiative (HABRI), 2026-2028

The Western Lake Erie Basin sits at the center of Ohio's most pressing nutrient management challenges, yet the success of wetland restoration in this region depends on far more than favorable biogeochemical conditions. The Great Black Swamp – once one of North America's largest wetland complexes – was systematically drained in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, creating a landscape whose physical infrastructure, economic identity, and cultural memory remain deeply tied to the engineered control of water. This project investigates how that historical legacy, together with contemporary governance arrangements and landowner perceptions, shapes the social feasibility of wetland restoration across the Maumee, Sandusky, and Grand Lake St. Marys watersheds. We frame the study area as a complex, adaptive social-ecological system in which land use decisions, policy incentives, and biophysical processes interact through multi-level feedbacks, and where restoration outcomes cannot be understood through ecological or social analysis alone.

Our approach integrates a large-scale survey of farmers and rural landowners, a governance network survey of agency and organizational actors, and ecological performance data from the H2Ohio Wetland Monitoring Program (led by Co-PI Lauren Kinsman-Costello) to identify where social willingness and ecological suitability converge spatially. We employ social-ecological network analysis to evaluate alignment between governance coordination structures and hydrological connectivity, and we develop a spatially explicit "social-ecological readiness" index that synthesizes modeled landowner willingness, network-based coordination indicators, and wetland nutrient retention metrics. The project produces actionable guidance for ODNR, the Ohio Lake Erie Commission, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and land trusts seeking to target restoration investments in areas that are both ecologically effective and socially viable. This work is supported by two PhD students in Geography and Biological Sciences, and contributes to the lab's broader research agenda on governance networks, conservation behavior, and coupled human-natural systems in agricultural watersheds.