Defining and describing Puget Sound shore types

Species and their habitats are a foundation of the ecosystem framework, but there is currently no generally agreed upon habitat classification system for Puget Sound. The closest thing for its marine and nearshore environments may be Dr. Megan Dethier’s 1990 resource A Marine and Estuarine Habitat Classification System for Washington State. Much of the work for that document was done in the general vicinity of Puget Sound, and it has been an influential resource for major habitat mapping efforts in the region, such as Shorezone.

Cover page for A Marine and Estuarine Habitat Classification System for Washington State

The following text is taken from A Marine and Estuarine Habitat Classification System for Washington State (Dethier 1990):

From the Preface

This document presents a classification system designed to identify and describe marine and estuarine natural communities in Washington State, covering the full array of nearshore habitat types. Its primary purposes are to:

Serve as a framework for existing data and future inventory work on the status and distribution of exemplary marine and estuarine communities in the state. Eventually it will allow selection and ranking of sites for marine preserves.
Aid in the statewide effort to map intertidal and shallow subtidal lands by providing mapping units, thus creating maps with uniform terminology useful to resource managers and planners. The mapping units (nearshore habitat types, each with a distinct physical regime) have an ecological basis, and eventually may allow mapping overlays of functions of different community types. To make effective decisions, land use planners, regulators and agency personnel need information not found in the National Wetland Inventory maps. This classification system should provide that detail by facilitating collection, organization and presentation of information describing the characteristics of nearshore marine and estuarine environments that make them important to humans (e.g., fish and wildlife habitat).

View habitat classifications.

Download A Marine and Estuarine Habitat Classification System for Washington State.