While Professor Emeritus John Callaway has bid a formal farewell to traditional academia, he remains hard at work ensuring scientific findings are accessible to those who need them. Professor Callaway taught courses on restoration ecology and wetland ecology for the Master of Science in Environmental Management (MSEM) Program, and his research on sediment dynamics in the San Francisco and Tijuana estuaries is extensive. Much of his recent work has been conducted at China Camp State Park, one of the last examples of a healthy, relatively undisturbed tidal salt marsh within the San Francisco estuary, and a key component of the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (SF Bay NERR).
As students of MSEM’s wetland ecology, watershed management, California ecosystems and natural resource economics courses will know, tidal wetlands are efficient carbon sinks that produce minimal methane, protect the coastline from erosion and flooding, facilitate pollutant removal and nutrient uptake from coastal waters, and provide habitat for fish and wildlife. Protection and management of these vital ecosystems is becoming increasingly important, as forecasting models predict that many of the tidal wetlands in the San Francisco Estuary could be lost to rising sea levels by 2100. Though the research findings gathered in the estuary are robust, there is a real need to ensure that the academic understanding of sediment dynamics is accessible to local agency staff and wetland restoration practitioners. In collaboration with Madeline Foster-Martinez (University of New Orleans), Jessie Lacy (US Geological Survey), Brenda Goeden (SF Bay Conservation and Development Commission), and Matt Ferner (SF Bay NERR), Professor Callaway worked to address this disconnect between scientific research and resource management.
Contemporary research is often siloed in technical journals and inaccessible to those it can aid, hindering conservation efforts and complicating decision making. The project – Marsh Sediment In Translation – aimed to remedy this issue by distilling the findings from China Camp into an easily accessible guide on the specifics of sediment dynamics in tidal salt marshes. Having authored technical protocols and taught extensively on the subject, Professor Callaway is no stranger to communicating his findings, but the team chose to take a novel approach by working directly with the intended users of the product to develop a document that specifically informed their management needs.
From January of 2021 to March of 2022, the team hosted local natural resource managers, regulators, scientists, and restoration practitioners at a series of workshops where they collaborated to identify the best way to present relevant data and concepts related to marsh sediment dynamics. The group discussed the data collected at the China Camp and, after several iterations, produced what the community called for: a set of actionable directives, relevant glossary terms and easy-to-read diagrams detailing current understanding. The resulting paper is a useful tool for local decision makers and represents a major step in taking large-scale, cohesive action to protect these areas in the face of rising sea levels.
If you want to read more about the study visit this link.
