ABSTRACT
CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 437 Kissimmee River Restoration Initiative................................................................................................. 437 Objectives of the Restoration Evaluation Plan...................................................................................... 438 End Points .............................................................................................................................................. 440
Impact Assessment End Points .................................................................................................... 440 Ecological Integrity End Points ................................................................................................... 442
Sociopolitical End Points................................................................................................ 442 Restoration End Points.................................................................................................... 443
Prioritization of Indicators..................................................................................................................... 444 Expectations ........................................................................................................................................... 446 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................ 448 Acknowledgments.................................................................................................................................. 448 References .............................................................................................................................................. 448
Goals for preserving, enhancing, or restoring environmental resources are often broadly defined and expressed in vague terms (e.g., ecosystem health and integrity) that hinder assessment of success (Rapport, 1989; Hartig and Zarull, 1992; Karr, 1999). The goal for restoration of ecological integrity of the Kissimmee River and floodplain (Toth, 1995), for example, requires “reestablishment of an ecosystem that is capable of supporting and maintaining a balanced, integrated, adaptive community of organisms having a species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to the natural habitat of the region” (sensu Karr and Dudley, 1981). This goal has a powerful ecological context but requires explicit expectations for response and recovery to be effectively evaluated and interpreted (Pastorok et al., 1997; Toth and Anderson, 1998). Evolution of the Kissimmee River evaluation program provides a case study of a process for selecting indicators to evaluate ecological changes associated with management and restoration objectives relating to the health and integrity of natural systems. A similar strategy has been recommended for evaluating the planned restoration of the San Francisco Bay-Delta River System (Levy et al., 1996) and indicates the potential applicability of this process to estuarine systems.
