Implementing the 2014 Puget Sound Pressure Assessment

The Puget Sound Partnership has undertaken a major project to evaluate pressures on the Sound’s marine, nearshore, freshwater, and terrestrial resources, and identify the critical ecosystem vulnerabilities that should be addressed to ensure sustainable long-term protection and recovery. The project is one of the priority science actions in the 2011-13 biennial science work plan, and was led by the Partnership’s Science Panel. The purpose of the 2014 Puget Sound Pressure Assessment is to create a more systematic and regionally accepted understanding of the pressures on the Puget Sound ecosystem and how and where the ecosystem is vulnerable to these pressures. It is intended to inform future decisions about what actions are most needed and how best to undertake Puget Sound protection and recovery. Vulnerability was assessed for stressor - ecosystem endpoint pairs by eliciting expert judgments about the functional impact, recovery time, and resistance of stressor effects on endpoints. Stressor intensity and endpoint distribution were separately characterized using either elicited expert judgments or GIS analysis as appropriate. Stressors represent documented, proximate causes of environmental change that capture a topic of concern identified in the Action Agenda or other applicable landscape assessment. Stressors included in this assessment were consistent with those presented in Puget Sound pressure taxonomy. Ecosystem endpoints are components or attributes of the ecosystem. Ecosystem endpoints were selected for three domains (terrestrial, freshwater, marine-nearshore). Vulnerability was assessed by eliciting expert judgments about and the strength of stressors expressed in geographic assessment units. Assessment units included 16 watersheds (using the areas defined for Chinook recovery planning) and seven marine basins (as defined by the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project). . Results calculated as potential impact of stressors, on endpoints, for individual assessment units can be combined in manifold ways to provide information about common themes and geographic differences in critical vulnerabilities. This presentation will share lessons learned from this complex project and assessment result