RANKING MULTIPLE RESTORATON EXPECTATIONS FOR THE KISSIMMEE RIVER, FLORIDA.

D.H. Anderson. Archbold Biological Station, Lake Placid, Florida 33862

One issue for evaluating ecosystem restoration projects involves handling the multiple success criteria needed to capture the range of anticipated responses. The Kissimmee River restoration is being evaluated with 60 specific expectations that address aspects of this floodplain-river ecosystem ranging from hydrology to wading birds and that were developed from the best available reference condition for each component. I quantified the relative reliability of these expectations using 14 ranking criteria (e.g., magnitude of change, variability, type of reference). Expectations were scored for each criterion, and the scores summed to give a total score for each expectation. Total scores ranged from 70 to 118, occupied the middle half of the possible range, and formed a continuous frequency distribution. Because the frequency distribution did not suggest natural groupings, I ranked the expectations by total score. The highest ranked expectations described changes in wetland vegetation community structure, while the lowest ranked described invertebrate movements between the river channel and floodplain and phytoplankton community structure in the river channel. Ranking expectations in this manner provides an objective basis for selecting among candidate expectations and for weighting them during integration.