DOI: 10.5061/dryad.zgmsbcc81
title: Data from: Priorities and motivations of marine coastal restoration research

description: Active restoration is becoming an increasingly important conservation
 intervention to counteract the degradation of marine coastal ecosystems.
 Understanding what has motivated the scientific community to research the
 restoration of marine coastal ecosystems and how restoration research
 projects are funded is essential if we want to scale-up restoration
 interventions to meaningful extents.Here, we systematically review and
 synthesize data to understand the motivations for research on the
 restoration of coral reefs, seagrass, mangroves, saltmarsh, and oyster
 reefs. We base this analysis off a published database of marine
 restoration studies, originally designed to estimate the cost and
 feasibility of marine coastal restoration, derived from mostly scientific
 studies published in peer-reviewed and some grey literature. For the
 present study, the database was updated with fields aimed at assessing the
 motivations, outcomes, and funding sources for each project. We classify
 restoration motivations into five categories: biotic, experimental,
 idealistic, legislative, and pragmatic. Moreover, we evaluate the
 variables measured and outcomes reported by the researchers and evaluate
 whether projects adhered to the Society for Ecological Restoration’s (SER)
 standards for the practice of ecological restoration. The most common
 motivation of the scientific community to study restoration in marine
 coastal ecosystems was experimental i.e. to seek experimental data to
 answer ecological research questions or improve restoration approach, as
 expected since mostly peer-reviewed literature was evaluated here. There
 were differences in motivations among the five coastal ecosystems. For
 instance, biodiversity enhancement was the most common case for a biotic
 motivation in mangrove restoration projects. The most common metrics
 evaluated were growth/productivity, survivorship, habitat function,
 physical attributes and reproduction. For most ecosystems, ecological
 outcomes were frequently reported, with socio-economic implications of the
 restoration rarely mentioned, except for mangroves. Projects were largely
 funded by governmental grants with some investment from private donations,
 non-governmental organizations, and the involvement of volunteers. Our
 findings and database provide critical data to align future research of
 the scientific community with the real social, economic and policy needs
 required to scale-up marine coastal restoration projects.
description: The database of Bayraktarov <i>et al.</i> (2016) which included publications up to 2014, was expanded for the present study using the following methods: The database was updated to include publications until 2018. This involved a systematic literature search using Web of Science (Core collection; Thomson Reuters, New York, New York, U.S.A.) and Scopus (Elsevier, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.) and the title search terms ‘(ecosystemA* OR ecosystemB*) AND restor*’, as well as ‘(ecosystemA * OR ecosystemB*) AND rehab*’. The terms ecosystemA and ecosystemB were used as placeholders for two different words describing the same ecosystem (e.g., coral and coral reef, mangrove and mangal, saltmarsh and salt marsh, shellfish and oyster). For consistency with Bayraktarov <i>et al.</i> (2016), An EndNote (Version X8.1; Thomson Reuters.) search was then performed within the full text using the search terms ‘(cost* OR feasib* OR surviv*)’. Additional information was gathered by following citations, personal communications, and inspecting diverse restoration databases and webpages. Reports included in the database were mostly from the published literature but also included some information from webpages and personal communications. English was the primary language in which the restoration projects were described with a few exceptions in Spanish. The updated database consisted of 275 studies of which 64% were scientific papers published in journals and 36% included other reports (e.g. books, book chapters, conference proceedings, reports, webpages, and personal communication).
description: This database represents the core part of the synthesis paper
 "Priorities and motivations of marine
 coastal restoration research". It contains
 information on cost and success of restoration projects worldwide
 described by the published literature, some grey literature and a few
 personal communications. This database is an update of the database
 "The cost and feasibility of marine coastal restoration" which
 captured information on the restoration of coral reefs, seagrass,
 mangroves, saltmarshes, and oyster reefs until November 2014. The update
 involves data extracted from the literature published until March 2018,
 data on motivations to carry out the restoration projects, information on
 whether the Standards for Ecological Restoration were followed by the
 projects, the category of the outcome reported and the variables measured
 to report on the project success. All economic values were updated with
 the newest data provided by The World Bank (March 2019). The restoration
 database with sections on coral reefs, seagrass, mangroves, saltmarsh and
 oyster reefs, contains the full reference, general information about the
 publication and project, the restoration action undertaken, species
 involved, location, a description on the type of cost reported,
 information on funding sources, project duration (in years), the area
 restored in hectare (ha), the converted restoration cost in 2010 US$ ha-1,
 feasibility information (including reasons for success or failure), and
 restoration success in terms of % survival of restored organisms. We
 accounted for pre-transplant (i.e. survival of coral spat/larvae in
 culture before rearing them in nursery or out-planting), transplant (i.e.
 survival of coral fragments during nursery period), post-transplant (i.e.
 survival of coral fragments after out-planting to the reef) survival as
 well as for the overall survival averaged over the former three categories
 for the coral reef section. See ‘Methods’ of the publication for a
 detailed database description for a detailed summary of the database
 information.