A Method for estimating marine habitat values Based on fish guilds, with comparisons between Sites in the southern California Bight

摘要

Habitat valuation is an essential tool for tracking changes in habitat quality and in adjudicating environmental mitigation. All current methods for estimating habitat values of coastal marine sites rely heavily on the opinion of experts or on data variables the can readily be manipulated to influence the outcome. As a result, unbiased, quantitative com- parisons between the values of different marine habitats are generally unavailable.