Millions of dollars are annually invested into coastal wetlands projects across the Great Lakes Basin. Explore our chart to learn about the types of projects that are funded.
Funding and number of projects by project type
This chart and the table below present a subset of data from the webmap introduced on the previous page. Funding for coastal wetlands typically is awarded to recipients who are either planning or already in the midst of executing an enhancement, restoration, or protection project. Invasive Control is a sub-category for Enhancement while Hydrologic Restoration and Shoreline Softening are sub-categories for Restoration. These sub-categories are tracked independently from their respective categories.
Explore the investments map to learn more about an individual project, or the project types common to a geographical area.
Investment projects FAQs
What's the difference between Enhancement and Restoration?
Restoration applies to projects in which a non-wetland area (e.g., farm field) is restored to be a coastal wetland. Any actions within an existing coastal wetland are considered enhancement. Hydrologic Restoration is considered both enhancement and restoration.
Are there common project types excluded from this data?
A large percentage of project data came from the EPA Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Funded Coastal Wetland Projects Fiscal Year 2010-2017 web map. The Blue Accounting Coastal Wetlands database consists solely of protection, enhancement and restoration projects. As such, Monitoring, Education, Assessment, and Planning projects are omitted from the coastal wetland database. Wetlands projects that lacked a hydrologic connection to the Great Lakes were removed. Overall, 68 projects that did not meet the Blue Accounting coastal wetlands project criteria were removed from the original GLRI data set provided by the EPA.