Topics Overview
Monitoring
Monitoring encompasses the routine measurement of ecosystem indicators to assess the status and trends of ecosystem structure and function. Broadly, there are two goals for monitoring in the Puget Sound ecosystem. The first goal is to monitor status and trends of the ecosystem. This may take the form of snapshots of specific regions, or, more usefully, status monitoring tracks variability in carefully selected indicators over time. Status monitoring is fundamentally concerned with documenting spatial and temporal variability in ecosystem components and thus ideally relies on consistent long-term monitoring in a network of sites. A second aim of monitoring is to evaluate the effectiveness of management strategies. Effectiveness monitoring thus aims to detect changes in ecosystem status that are caused by specific management actions.
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Table 30. Species indicators for which targets have been established in Puget Sound and/or Washington state.
|
Species Indicator |
Target |
Achieved |
Reference |
|
Bald eagle |
Equilibrium population abundance is ~6,000 individuals in WA state |
Yes |
[303] |
|
Harbor seal |
Carrying capacity of 10,000-13,000 individuals (WA inland waters) |
Yes |
This section provides a brief summary of existing targets for Puget Sound including those for species, habitats, water quality, and water quantity.
A catalog of ecosystem indicators is only useful in the extent to which it informs answers to the question “Is Puget Sound healthy?” In economics, it is not meaningful to report on the rate at which unemployment claims are filed unless it is known that an increase in that rate indicates a decline in the business cycle (The Business Conference Board 2001). Similarly, in the absence of reference levels, a list of values for indicators alone provides no insight into the status of the ecosystem relative to its desired state. Thus, establishing a target associated with each indicator is fundamental to the success of the Puget Sound Partnership’s ecosystem-based management efforts, for several reasons.
In the PSP parlance, a target is defined as a desired state (Puget Sound Partnership 2009b). Consequently, the process of establishing desirability must comprise not just ecological understanding, but also societal values (Campbell et al. 2009, Rapport 1992). A powerful way to collect and organize data about societal values is the normative approach (Vaske et al. 1993). Norms define what is generally accepted within a cultural context, and may serve as societal standards to evaluate ecosystem conditions, human activities, or management strategies.
A construct that has been particularly successful in the realm of fisheries management is the distinction between target and limit reference levels (Figure 9). A target is a reference level that signals a desired state, whereas a limit is a reference level pegged to an extreme value beyond which undesired change occurs (Jennings and Dulvy 2005, Caddy 2002).
Ranking schemes provide a mechanism for narrowing the long list of indicators presented above to a more manageable set that facilitates inference about the status of the Puget Sound ecosystem. Here we suggest that focusing on the specificity and sensitivity of an indicator, in combination with its performance against the “understood by the public and policymakers” criterion introduced above, provides a framework for reporting on the status of Puget Sound.
Terminology and Concepts
|
Ecosystem assessment indicator |
Technically robust and rigorous metric used by scientists and managers to understand of ecosystem structure and function |
|
Improving indicator |
Indicator that is increasing faster in the short-term but slower in the long-term than an index that captures aggregate changes in multiple indicators |
There are over seventy USGS gauging stations on unregulated rivers and streams in Puget Sound, which are continuously collecting streamflow data. There are over 170 specific metrics that can be used to evaluate different aspects of streamflow. In order to determine which of these is most suitable for Puget Sound, we performed a review of the literature to determine salient management and scientific issues. The management issues of concern and potential indicators are listed below:
|
Management Issue |
Possible Indicator |
|
Climate Change |
Recently the PSP listed several contaminants of concern for Puget Sound organized into four general categories including toxics, nutrients, pathogens, and other (i.e. deviations in physical/chemical state of a water body; Puget Sound Partnership 2008b). Specific issues related to these categories, including discussions on several chemicals of concern, have been detailed therein and elsewhere (Puget Sound Partnership 2009c). Nutrients and “other,” will be discussed as physical/chemical parameters; toxics as trace inorganic and organic chemicals; pathogens, under the goal Human Health.
This version of the Puget Sound Science Update provides an initial evaluation of habitat indicators, but is not intended to be comprehensive. Highlights include evaluation of marine and interface habitats (area and condition), as well as evaluation of a number of indicators of freshwater and terrestrial habitats condition. Many measures of habitat condition, especially those relating to water quality, were addressed under the PSP Water Quality goal.
This version of the Puget Sound Science Update provides an initial evaluation of food web indicators, but is not intended to be comprehensive. Highlights include the evaluation of individual species or species complexes as food web indicators due to their key functional roles (e.g., forage fish, jellyfish), and the identification of existing data sources for assessing food web structure and function at Washington State agencies and via satellite.
This version of the Puget Sound Science Update provides an initial evaluation of species indicators, but is not intended to be comprehensive. Focal species identified by O’Neill et al. (2008) were evaluated as either measures of population size or population condition. Many of these were identified as potentially good species indicators, and several may be relevant to key attributes of the other PSP goals (e.g., habitat condition).
1. Section Scope
This section reviews, assesses, and summarizes the potential strategies investigated in past scientific and technical research for positively affecting the watersheds and tributaries draining to Puget Sound. The review and assessment covers strategies for both protecting resources that remain and recovering or improving resources that have been impaired. Concentration is on presenting the level of effectiveness of the candidate strategies, as established by the research, and the relative certainty associated with the reported effectiveness. Of particular interest is identifying strategies that reduce multiple threats to the Puget Sound ecosystem.
Background
The hydrologic regime of rivers and streams in the Puget Sound is characterized by peak flows during the winter as a result of heavy precipitation, or during the spring due to snowmelt runoff. Base flows during the summer are low, consisting mainly of groundwater discharge. Base flows can be affected by climate change, urbanization, or groundwater withdrawals. Summer base flow levels are important ecologically because they can define or limit the availability of habitats. Summer base flow levels are important to water resource managers because low flows often coincide with peak consumption.
Here we provide a limited synthesis of stream gauge data to examine trends in freshwater flows with respect to annual and daily flows, timing of flow, low flows and flows relative to instream flow guidelines. This is intended to supplement a review of published information, but we caution that a full analysis of these data and appropriate vetting of methods and interpretations is needed to fully assess the status of freshwater flows. It is our intention that this data compilation and analysis be used to identify data limitations and other key uncertainties with respect to the Puget Sound Partnership Water Quantity Priorities.
Background
Eutrophication of water bodies occurs when high levels of nutrients fuel high rates of primary production and accumulation of algal biomass, either as macroalgae or phytoplankton. Some ecosystems are naturally eutrophic, but in others human activity causes ecosystems to undergo transformations into a eutrophic state. This is termed cultural eutrophication, and is the primary concern in evaluating the status of marine waters of Puget Sound.
Detailed spreadsheets showing the results of the indicator evaluation are available at the following link: Indicator Evaluation Spreadsheets. Summary tables are included at the end of this section. Following the framework outlined in Section 3, we organize the results of the evaluation by PSP ecosystem goals (i.e. Species, Habitat, Food Webs, Water Quality, and Water Quantity). Each goal has been divided per unique ecosystem domain (marine, freshwater, interface, and terrestrial).
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NOAA has released a draft report establishing a common monitoring and adaptive management framework for Chinook salmon recovery in Puget Sound.
Your daily coffee habit may someday help identify sources of bacterial pollution in Puget Sound. Researchers at the Puget Sound Institute (PSI) are developing a new tool for targeting leaky septic tanks that may have broader implications for studies of emerging contaminants.
The Puget Sound Recovery Implementation Technical Team has released a draft of a NOAA technical memorandum describing frameworks for adaptive management and monitoring of Chinook salmon in Puget Sound. Download the report.
A recent summary includes information compiled in Winter 2013 by the modeling workgroup of the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program (PSEMP). It describes several ecosystem modeling efforts in the region.
This is the executive summary from a technical report produced for the Puget Sound Nearshore Partnership on Valued Ecosystem Components (VEC). The entire document is included as a PDF with this summary.
Canadian and U.S. governments differ on special status for bocaccio in the Salish Sea.
The Encyclopedia of Puget Sound species library now includes a list of species of concern in the Salish Sea watershed. The list was created by Joe Gaydos and Nicholas Brown of the SeaDoc Society, and was released as a paper presented as part of the Proceedings of the 2011 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference in Vancouver, BC.
An indicator species is an organism whose presence, absence or abundance reflects a specific environmental condition. Indicator species can signal a change in the biological condition of a particular ecosystem, and thus may be used as a proxy to diagnose the health of an ecosystem. For example, plants or lichens sensitive to heavy metals or acids in precipitation may be indicators of air pollution. Indicator species can also reflect a unique set of environmental qualities or characteristics found in a specific place, such as a unique microclimate. However, care must be exercised in using indicator species.
The Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe conducts annual surveys of amphibian egg masses in the Reservation Slough wetland near the Sauk River.
Download a November 2012 assessment of monitoring of viable salmonid population (VSP) criteria.
A recent report by an independent science panel reviewed data on the effects of salmon fisheries on Southern Resident Killer Whale populations. The report was released on November 30, 2012 and was commissioned by NOAA Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Protection Island, a National Wildlife Refuge in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, provides important habitat for seabirds and marine mammals.
The Puget Sound Marine Waters 2011 report is now available. The report was produced by the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program and assesses the condition and quality of the waters of Puget Sound.
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), sometimes called Indigenous Knowledge, refers to the deep well of experience that indigenous cultures have of their environment. In the last thirty years, there has been growing interest in TEK as a resource for restoration and conservation projects.
Puget Sound Stream Benthos is a data management project which monitors benthic invertebrates in streams and rivers in the Puget Sound region. The system is maintained and operated by King County, and was the result of a joint effort between King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties.
They are sometimes called Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), or submersible drones. They glide like airships through the deeper channels of Puget Sound, and have become an important tool for a wide array of open ocean applications, including detection of marine mammals, military reconnaissance and the monitoring of environmental disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Puget Sound is the birthplace and key testing area of the Seaglider.
Puget Sound has over 4,000 km (2,500 miles) of shorelines, ranging from rocky sea cliffs to coastal bluffs and river deltas. The exchange of water, sediment, and nutrients between the land and sea is fundamental to the formation and maintenance of an array of critical habitat types.
"Habitat" describes the physical and biological conditions that support a species or species assemblage and refers to conditions that exist at many scales. An oyster shell provides habitat for some algae and invertebrates, whereas cubic miles of sunlit water in Puget Sound comprise the habitat for many planktonic species.