Coastal wetland restoration is measured through several different lenses: annual habitat efforts, completed restoration, protected land, planning awards, monitoring coverage, and long-term wetland loss. The figures below keep those measures separate while showing the scale of work reported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and NOAA.
Contents
- National Estuary Program acreage
- Louisiana restoration scale and risk
- Great Lakes monitoring and restoration
- NOAA-funded project footprints
- Rhode Island restoration outcomes
- Coastal wetland loss and baseline area
National Estuary Program acreage
The National Estuary Program reports annual habitat efforts by class. These are annual figures, not a cumulative restoration total, and the EPA notes that the habitat categories should not be interpreted as one standardized restoration method. The series still provides a useful view of how reported effort differed across habitat types from 2020 through 2025.
In 2025, the program recorded 17,063.39 acres of forested wetland habitat efforts, 7,059.82 acres of salt-marsh efforts, 2,542.72 acres of freshwater marsh efforts, 2,000 acres of non-mangrove shrub-swamp efforts, and 515.24 acres of mangrove efforts. Forested wetland was the largest listed category, while mangrove acreage was the smallest. Source: National Results from the National Estuary Program.
The 2024 figures were 13,818.468 acres of forested wetland, 7,071.927 acres of freshwater marsh, 6,086.65 acres of salt marsh, 2,052.5 acres of non-mangrove shrub swamp, and 84.136 acres of mangrove. The composition therefore changed notably from the 2025 report: freshwater marsh and salt-marsh efforts were both substantial in 2024, while the reported mangrove figure was much smaller than in 2025.
| Habitat type | 2024 acres | 2025 acres |
|---|---|---|
| Forested wetland | 13,818.468 | 17,063.39 |
| Salt marsh | 6,086.65 | 7,059.82 |
| Freshwater marsh | 7,071.927 | 2,542.72 |
| Non-mangrove shrub swamp | 2,052.5 | 2,000 |
| Mangrove | 84.136 | 515.24 |
Earlier annual records show similarly uneven distributions. In 2023, the program recorded 62,054.7 acres of forested wetland, 7,805.02 acres of freshwater marsh, 1,710.415 acres of salt marsh, and 228.99 acres of mangrove efforts. In 2022, the corresponding figures were 9,969.192 acres of forested wetland, 3,265.179 acres of freshwater marsh, 1,197.74 acres of salt marsh, and 29.592 acres of mangrove.
The 2021 report recorded 5,308.295 acres of forested wetland, 5,240.138 acres of salt marsh, 1,460.55 acres of freshwater marsh, and 840.92 acres of mangrove. In 2020, it recorded 15,119.83 acres of forested wetland, 2,692.9 acres of freshwater marsh, and 1,871.45 acres of mangrove. These year-to-year differences are reported annual efforts; they do not establish a cumulative acreage trend or prove that one habitat class consistently received more completed restoration than another.
Louisiana restoration scale and risk
Louisiana illustrates why coastal wetland restoration is connected to fisheries as well as habitat. NOAA reports that Louisiana accounts for roughly 30% of the total volume of U.S. commercial fisheries. The state’s commercial fishery landings are worth approximately $1 billion annually, and Louisiana provides 35–40% of annual U.S. shrimp and oyster harvests. These are current descriptions in NOAA’s source, accessed in 2026, rather than a single-year landing estimate.
Through the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act, NOAA has constructed more than 40 Louisiana coastal wetland restoration projects and restored more than 12,500 acres of coastline since 1990. The period is 1990–2026 in the supplied NOAA description, and the acreage is presented as completed restoration associated with those projects.
The same NOAA source describes a much larger projected challenge. It projects that approximately 800,000 acres of Louisiana wetlands could be lost during the lifetime of a child born today. It also reports that wetland loss could move the Louisiana coastline inland by 33 miles in some areas. Both figures are long-term projections, not completed losses measured during the project period and not restoration outcomes. Source: Conducting Large-Scale Wetland Restoration in Louisiana.
The contrast between more than 12,500 acres restored since 1990 and the approximately 800,000 acres projected at risk should not be treated as a direct accounting comparison. The first figure describes constructed projects; the second describes a long-term projection. They use different time frames and statuses, but together they show the scale difference between individual restoration programs and broader coastal change.
Great Lakes monitoring and restoration
The Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Monitoring Program provides a regional monitoring scale that is distinct from direct restoration acreage. Since sampling began in 2011, the program has visited more than 1,000 wetland sites and monitored more than 400,000 acres of coastal wetland habitat. The supplied program period is 2011–2025. Source: About the Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Monitoring Program.
Monitoring coverage does not mean that every monitored acre was restored. It indicates the geographic and ecological scale at which the program collected information. Restoration status is reported separately: as of 2019, more than 52,000 acres of Great Lakes coastal wetlands had been restored, enhanced, or protected through Great Lakes Restoration Initiative-supported actions.
The distinction matters when comparing the two figures. More than 400,000 acres describes habitat monitored since 2011, while more than 52,000 acres describes restoration, enhancement, or protection through GLRI-supported actions as of 2019. Neither figure is a claim that all monitored habitat received restoration work, and the dates are not identical.
NOAA-funded project footprints
NOAA’s 2024 Coastal Zone Management Program funded projects show how coastal conservation can involve restoration, planning, enhancement, acquisition, and baseline analysis. Because the awards mix those actions, their acreage figures should be read as project footprints or intended conservation areas rather than one completed-restoration total. Source: Coastal Zone Management Program Funded Projects.
One Illinois Beach State Park award provided $2,311,672 for baseline data and analyses to guide future wetland restoration. In Wisconsin, a coastal restoration planning award covered the entire 1.8-mile Valley Creek urban riparian corridor, while a separate land-conservation award planned to acquire 1,055 acres of undeveloped coastal-zone property in Iron County.
Other awards covered smaller, specific sites or larger future conservation areas. A Florida coastal habitat acquisition award would protect 68 acres along the Manatee River. A Delaware planning project would design restoration and enhancement of 12.7 acres of degraded wetland habitat along the Christina River. In Virginia, a conservation award would acquire 1,900 acres in the Albemarle–Pamlico watershed region for future climate-resilient restoration.
Several projects focused on particular habitat systems. A New Jersey oyster-reef restoration award would expand the Mullica River–Great Bay estuary reef footprint by 10 acres. A Massachusetts project would restore 57 acres of former cranberry bogs to a functioning wetland system, while a separate design award covered restoration of 15 acres of coastal wetland at a retired cranberry bog. The Massachusetts Bass River project was intended to support restoration of more than 160 acres across the wider ecosystem.
On the Pacific coast, an Oregon conservation project would protect 528 acres of tidal wetlands along the Coquille River. These examples show why a project list should preserve the source’s action verb: protect, acquire, plan, design, analyze, expand, or restore. An announced award and a completed restoration are not interchangeable measures.
Rhode Island restoration outcomes
Rhode Island’s coastal-management evaluation reports five annual outcome figures for 2018–2023. The report recorded 35 acres of coastal habitat restored in the first evaluation year, 2018–2019, and 40 acres in the second year, 2019–2020. The third evaluation year, 2020–2021, recorded 3,133 acres; the fourth, 2021–2022, recorded 3,229 acres; and the fifth, 2022–2023, recorded 434 acres.
| Evaluation period | Coastal habitat restored |
|---|---|
| 2018–2019 | 35 acres |
| 2019–2020 | 40 acres |
| 2020–2021 | 3,133 acres |
| 2021–2022 | 3,229 acres |
| 2022–2023 | 434 acres |
Across the evaluation period, Rhode Island reported 6,871 total acres of coastal habitat under restoration with coastal-management funding or staff assistance. The program’s target for coastal habitat under restoration during the same evaluation period was 250 acres. The report’s “under restoration” total is broader than a single annual completed-restoration figure, so it should not be substituted for any one row in the five-year sequence. Source: Final Findings: Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Program.
The five-year sequence is highly uneven, with the two largest reported annual figures occurring in 2020–2021 and 2021–2022. The supplied source gives the acreage outcomes and evaluation-year labels but does not provide a method for explaining the changes between years. The statistics therefore describe the reported program outcomes without attributing the variation to a particular project type or cause.
Coastal wetland loss and baseline area
Restoration figures are easier to interpret when placed beside documented wetland loss. An EPA coastal-watershed assessment found that coastal watersheds lost about 80,000 wetland acres per year on average between 2004 and 2009. In the preceding 1998–2004 study period, the average was about 59,000 wetland acres lost per year. These are historical averages, not current annual rates. Source: Coastal Wetlands.
For the 282 conterminous U.S. coastal counties, a NOAA-linked study reported 2010 baseline areas of 5,442,458 acres of estuarine wetlands and 23,230,861 acres of palustrine wetlands. From 1996 to 2010, those counties lost 139,552 acres of estuarine wetlands and 336,922 acres of palustrine wetlands. The study’s estuarine-wetland loss represented 2.5% of the estuarine-wetland area in the region.
The geographic concentration was particularly strong in the Gulf of Mexico: the region accounted for 87% of estuarine-wetland losses in the 1996–2010 coastal-county analysis. These baseline and loss figures come from Voluntary Restoration: Mitigation’s Silent Partner in the Quest to Reverse Coastal Wetland Loss in the USA.
Together, the national, regional, and project-level statistics show several different dimensions of coastal wetland restoration. Annual National Estuary Program habitat efforts track reported activity by class; Louisiana and Rhode Island provide program and outcome scales; Great Lakes figures separate monitoring from restoration; NOAA’s 2024 awards show planned, protected, and restored footprints; and historical EPA and NOAA-linked studies establish the wetland-loss context against which restoration is pursued.