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2015 Puget Sound Factbook Book | v3.0 Ruckelshaus, M. H and M. M. McClure. 2007. Sound Science: Synthesizing ecological and socioeconomic information about the Puget Sound ecosystem. 2007. Prepared in cooperation with the Sound Science collaborative team. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NMFS), Northwest Fisheries Science Center. Seattle, Washington. Available at http://blog.pugetsoundinstitute.org/wpcontent/uploads/2011/12/SoundScience2007.pdf Schlenger, P., A. MacLennan, E. Iverson, K. Fresh, C. Tanner, B. Lyons, S. Todd, R. Carman, D. Myers, S. Campbell, and A. Wick. 2011. Strategic Needs Assessment: Analysis of Nearshore Ecosystem Process Degradation in Puget Sound. Prepared for the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project. Technical Report 2011-02. Available at www.pugetsoundnearshore.org Shipman, H. 2008. A Geomorphic Classification of Puget Sound Nearshore Landforms. Puget Sound Nearshore Partnership Report No. 2008-01. Published by Seattle District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle, Washington. Available at www.pugetsoundnearshore.org. Simenstad, C.A., M. Ramirez, J. Burke, M. Logsdon, H. Shipman, C. Tanner, J. Toft, B. Craig, C. Davis, J. Fung, P. Bloch, K. Fresh, S. Campbell, D. Myers, E. Iverson, A. Bailey, P. Schlenger, C. Kiblinger, P. Myre, W. Gerstel, and A. MacLennan. 2011. Historical Change of Puget Sound Shorelines: Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Project Change Analysis. Puget Sound Nearshore Report No. 2011-01. Published by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Olympia, Washington, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle, Washington. Available at www.pugetsoundnearshore.org. 64
Habitats Terrestrial and freshwater habitat How important is land cover conversion as a stressor? And how has land cover changed in the Puget Sound watershed? Essay by: Nick Georgiadis, University of Washington Puget Sound Institute The 2014 Puget Sound Pressures Assessment Ecosystem recovery should be, and often is, informed by the best available science. Typically, the source of the best available information is peer-reviewed scientific literature. However, questions often arise and major decisions must be made for which there is no vetted guidance in the scientific literature, and no time to study the issue directly. For example, among the first questions asked by recovery practitioners about an ecosystem like Puget Sound are: Of the many human pressures on the ecosystem, which present the greatest threats? And On which pressures should recovery effort be focused? Typically, answers are not to be found in technical journals, rather, they reside inside the crania of specialists and experts who are familiar with diverse components of the ecosystem. The process of carefully asking the right questions of experts, and classifying their informed answers, is known as ‘expert elicitation’. The trick is to draw opinions as objectively as possible, from as many experts as possible, and synthesize their responses as systematically as possible. While the products may not be as well-supported as, say, the results of an incisive experiment, they are infinitely superior to abject guesses, and serve very well, if by default, as the best available information. Expert elicitation was recently used to list and rank human actions and effects that are injurious to the Puget Sound ecosystem, often referred to as “stressors”. Details of the exercise are intricate and lengthy, but it was thorough: in the end, 61 experts rated the impact of a total of 47 stressors on a total of 60 “endpoints” – the species and habitats that humans value the most, and aspire to conserve or restore. The assessment yielded scores quantifying how severely each stressor affects each endpoint. These scores were summed to yield overall rankings of stressor impact, and of endpoint vulnerability. Results were published online in a report entitled The 2014 Puget Sound Pressures Assessment (PSPA; McManus et al., 2014), and were revealing about the relative impacts of stressors on terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments. Land cover conversion featured prominently among stressors with the greatest potential impacts across all environments: Conversion of land cover for natural resource production Non-point source conventional water pollutants Conversion of land cover for transportation & utilities Shoreline hardening Non-point source, persistent toxic chemicals in aquatic systems 65
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