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Abstract
Constructed wetlands provide valuable ecosystem services such as phosphorus (P) retention and waterbird habitat, particularly in agriculturally dominated watersheds like the Western Lake Erie Basin. This study applied a parsimonious model (MARSH) to evaluate tradeoffs between these services under various management scenarios and wetland sizes across a range of future climate conditions while incorporating external hydrology data to test model performance versus more complex methods. Results indicate that achieving both P retention and habitat objectives in wetland design depends less on wetland size and more on management objectives; static management of shallow water depths (~ 0.1 m) consistently maximizes P retention efficiency (67.9 ± 3.2%), while dynamic management enhances biodiversity (37 waterbird species supported). Adaptive management strategies are vital for balancing ecosystem service co-provision. MARSH demonstrated reliability as a reduced-complexity decision-support tool for the engineering design of wetlands, offering comparable results to more complex alternatives. These findings contribute to improved multi-objective wetland design guidance, promoting effective restoration practices and supporting efforts to simultaneously mitigate eutrophication and enhance waterbird habitat.