Puget Sound marine and nearshore grant program results, final analysis report

A September 2016 report from the University of Washington Puget Sound Institute provides an overview of key products, results, and recommendations presented in three previous reports reviewing 50 projects from the first four years of the Puget Sound Marine and Nearshore Grant Program.

report cover: Synthesis of 2011-2014 results and key recommendations for future recovery efforts: Final analysis report
report cover: Synthesis of 2011-2014 results and key recommendations for future recovery efforts: Final analysis report

Introduction

The Puget Sound Marine and Nearshore Grant Program (“the Grant Program”) is a partnership between the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and the Washington Department of Natural Resources (WDNR). Since 2011, the Grant Program has distributed National Estuary Program funds to support more than 75 projects to implement recovery priorities identified in the Action Agenda for Puget Sound.

Five years into their current 6-year funding cycle, the Grant Program funded the Puget Sound Institute (PSI) to analyze and synthesize the results of their first 4 years of awards. The aim of this grant was to evaluate the results of completed work in order to inform and optimize future work at project, programmatic, and Puget Sound recovery levels.

PSI evaluated and synthesized the reports and deliverables of 50 grants in a series of three Analysis Reports:

  • Part 1 covered 14 regulatory effectiveness and stewardship grants (Table 1);
  • Part 2 covered 9 grants related to high-priority threats, and the Puget Sound Pressures Assessment (Table 2); and
  • Part 3 covered 20 habitat protection and restoration grants, as well as 6 outreach efforts (Table 1).

This report provides an overview of key products, results, and recommendations presented in our 3 previous reports. We have organized key findings into the following categories:

  1. Regulatory effectiveness
  2. Promoting armor removal and “soft shore” protection techniques
  3. Sea level rise planning and adaptation
  4. Invasive species
  5. Oil spill prevention and response
  6. Eelgrass restoration
  7. Habitat restoration and protection

These categories correspond broadly to top stressors identified in the Grant Program-funded 2014 Puget Sound Pressures Assessment (McManus et al. 2014), or to strategies for reducing specific stressors. Overall, the Grant Program’s funding strategy aligned well with Pressure Assessment stressor rankings for marine basins (Kinney et al. 2016a). The largest Grant Program investments focused on stressors with the highest potential impact rankings.

Detailed information and analyses related to the individual grants, as well as data from individual grants and additional recommendations, can be found in the Part 1-3 Reports. Not all grants are covered in this summary. The aim of this summary is to capture some of the key over-arching findings and messages that emerged from the synthesis and analysis.

Download the full report (PDF)

Citation

Kinney, A., Francis, T., & Rice, J. (2016). Synthesis of 2011-2014 results and key recommendations for future recovery efforts: Final analysis report. Tacoma, WA: University of Washington Puget Sound Institute.