1988 Committee on Research in Puget Sound

Mandate for the Committee on Research in Puget Sound

In 1986 the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority reviewed the Puget Sound research effort and identified several issues that needed to be addressed. Among these issues were the planning, coordination, and funding of research and the access to and use of research results by decision-makers. In the 1987 Puget Sound Water Quality Management Plan the Authority established the Committee on Research in Puget Sound and asked the Committee to make recommendations to the Authority on these issues.

The Committee was formed in February 1987. It is composed of 20 individuals representing academic institutions, state and federal agencies, the business community, agriculture, environmental groups, and private research organizations. This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Committee. The recommendations will be presented for comment and discussion by participants at the First Annual Meeting on Puget Sound Research, which will be convened in Seattle on March 18 and 19, 1988. 

Findings of the Committee

The Committee finds that there is no comprehensive and coordinated program for research on Puget Sound. While various federal agencies currently support most of the Puget Sound research, each agency must give first priority to meeting its own needs. None of these agencies claims responsibility for Puget Sound as a whole. Consequently, the scope of the research is limited. State agencies generally have limited budgets that usually can only support shortterm and site-specific studies. The result of this fragmented approach is:

1. There is limited coordination among agencies to optimize how research dollars are spent;
2. No planning activity identifies the research needs for the whole Sound as a complex system and sets these in the context of the most urgent and serious problems;
3. There is no stable and continuous source of support for research questions that require a long-term effort; and
4. There is little research that looks at the cumulative effects of our decisions on the Puget Sound system as a whole.
5. There is no medium for interaction among researchers to discuss the results and the implications of their work.

The Committee also finds that the present system falls short of delivering the research results to the decision-makers and other involved parties in a form and time frame that allows the results to be used in decisions. A significant percentage of agency-sponsored research resides in internal reports that receive limited distribution. Agency managers have little opportunity to stay abreast of the multiple professional journals that might contain Puget Soundrelated research. Staff at the local planning level have a particularly strong need for research results that are translated into operating guidelines or models that they can readily adapt to their specific circumstances.

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