Encyclopedia of Puget Sound Homepage

What is the largest estuary in the United States? Sources often point to Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound, but an estuary in Alaska may hold the title.

Local Integrating Organizations (LIOs) are local forums that bring people together to protect and restore the ecosystem through locally specific strategies and actions. LIOs provide a venue for stakeholders and partners to identify and develop locally driven recovery strategies.

The Puget Sound Science Update represents the state‐of‐the‐science supporting the work of the Puget Sound Partnership to restore and protect the Puget Sound ecosystem. The content of the Puget Sound Science Update was developed following a process modeled after the rigorous peer‐review process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Almost 200 gray whales have washed up dead along the West Coast in 2026. A small group of gray whales who feed in Puget Sound is surprisingly central to understanding the crisis.

Water circulation in Puget Sound is important for flushing out nutrients and affects dissolved oxygen. This overview describes Puget Sound's two-layer circulation process where fresher surface water flows out to sea while saltier ocean water flows in along the bottom. Dissolved oxygen in Puget Sound basins varies by location and season, and is

This overview describes how nitrogen in the marine environment changes depending on oxygen levels and can be lost from the system as nitrogen gas. In spring and summer, nitrogen near the surface of the Salish Sea may become low enough to limit primary production, and organic carbon that settles into sediments can reduce dissolved oxygen.