What\u27s working to restore Puget Sound? Connecting investments, actions, and outcomes

Throughout Puget Sound, long-term funding and investment in recovery actions have resulted in measurable improvements. Results from individual projects have been reported anecdotally in terms of improved water quality, habitat condition and wildlife, and salmon populations. Yet our ability to report these positive outcomes to funding agencies has been limited. This is because information and results are scattered across databases maintained by multiple local, state, tribal, and federal agencies. Data sets are typically well curated, but not connected. We have developed a prototype of a web tool that combines information about actions and outcomes to demonstrate the value of investments for Puget Sound recovery. Working across agencies and data sets, our approach summarizes data at the subwatershed scale (HUC12), tests for changes in environmental condition using statistical meta-analysis, and illustrates how restoration and management actions are effective, or not, to nontechnical audiences, including funders, elected officials, and sponsors. The web application is a regional prototype that demonstrates how data collected from multiple organizations can be connected to measure change over time and scaled over larger and smaller watershed areas

Assessing biological condition in small streams of the Puget Sound lowlands through collaborative regional monitoring

In 2015, the condition of Puget Sound Lowland streams was evaluated by collecting data for stream invertebrates, algae, water and sediment quality, and instream and riparian habitat. The study was designed and implemented as part of the Stormwater Action Monitoring program, a collaborative, regional stormwater monitoring program funded by more than 90 Western Washington cities and counties, the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, and the Washington State Department of Transportation. The goal of this long term program is to inform stakeholders on the status and trends of small streams within the Puget Lowlands and to track whether stream condition improves as a result of stormwater management practices in the region. A comparable number of sites were randomly selected inside and outside the Urban Growth Area (UGA). Benthic invertebrate taxa were used to calculate the benthic multi-metric index (B-IBI) and three stressor index scores for each of the 104 sites. All sites showed that sites within UGAs had poorer invertebrate condition compared to sites outside the UGA. Similar patterns were shown for algae, with the Trophic Diatom Index (TDI) indicating elevated nutrients inside the UGA compared to outside the UGA. We used boosted regression trees and a relative risk/attributable risk analysis to determine the most important human and natural factors influencing biological condition in the region. For the B-IBI, the most important factors influencing scores were December precipitation, watershed percent urban development, percent of watershed and riparian canopy cover, and stream substrate. For the TDI, the most important factors influencing condition were mean summer total phosphorus and nitrogen concentrations and watershed percent urban development. The intent is to use this status year of data to refine the sample design, and begin trend monitoring in the coming years with the goal to determine if streams are getting better or worse over time

Meta-Analysis of Project Effectiveness: Learning at the Regional Scale

Many regional monitoring programs are designed to answer questions about the effectiveness of restoration or management actions. How do we evaluate regional effectiveness of restoration efforts from project scale studies? Regional decision-making depends on results from local-scale projects. Statistical meta-analysis provides a method for determining which restoration actions are the most effective. Meta-analysis is widely applied in other fields to evaluate the effectiveness of medical treatments and educational programs. We define an effectiveness study as one in which monitoring data are collected before and after a restoration action. Many examples of effectiveness monitoring studies exist in Puget Sound, including projects to reduce pollutants or contaminants in rivers, nearshore areas, and sediment. Other examples include projects designed to restore habitat such as riparian forest or estuarine areas. Project success may be measured in terms of improved water quality, reduced toxics, or increased fish use. Meta-analysis provides a framework for comparing across studies and across restoration endpoints that use different response variables to measure change over time. To make these comparisons, meta-analysis standardizes the response variable by calculating a unitless statistic from each study, called Cohen’s d. The change statistic is calculated as the difference before and after the restoration action divided by the pooled variance. Cohen’s d can be used to identify which treatments are most effective and which variables most responsive. We compared a diverse set of projects to evaluate which types of projects are most successful in terms of measurable change over time. Because meta-analysis depends on the data available for the study, we vetted our results with regional experts who collect and work with these data

How Are the Fish Doing? Development and implementation of sixteen watershed monitoring and adaptive management programs for recovery of Puget Sound Chinook

The Puget Sound Partnership is working with a team of consultants led by Long Live the Kings to develop a performance management system for recovery of Chinook salmon across Puget Sound. With final products due in May 2014, this presentation will discuss the mechanics for implementing the project in sixteen unique watersheds, successes and challenges, and lessons learned for future application and planning. In 1999, Puget Sound Chinook salmon were listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. NOAA-NMFS (the federal agency accountable for the listing) supported authorship of unique watershed chapters by locally-led, collaborative watershed groups comprised of local jurisdictions, tribes, non-profits, state and federal entities and other stakeholders. NOAA completed review in 2007 and adopted the chapters with a supplement acknowledging a missing piece essential to the plan: a regional monitoring and adaptive management framework that would track the adequacy of proposed actions and allow watersheds and the region to review, revise and strengthen their chapters over time. PSP and the LLTK team of consultants are working with 16 local watershed teams of scientists, managers and policy makers to apply the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation approach for translating existing Chinook recovery chapters into a common regional language. Over a year long period, watersheds are identifying components, attributes and indicators for the ecosystem that can be used to characterize the health of Chinook and their habitat, conducting a viability analysis to identify current and future desired status, identifying pressures, and documenting “theories of change” and hypotheses for recovery. Authors will discuss the mechanics of this project and how the outcomes are intended to form the basis of a monitoring and adaptive management system for Chinook salmon recovery in Puget Sound

Ten years of restoration and protection in Puget Sound: What\u27s the impact on salmon?

The Puget Sound Acquisition & Restoration (PSAR) program was created in 2007 to advance salmon recovery efforts through habitat restoration and protection in the Puget Sound. Working with local entities to identify and prioritize projects, PSAR has funded over 450 projects around Puget Sound and is an essential resource in implementing regional recovery plans for salmonid populations, including ESA listed Puget Sound Chinook. Ten years after its inception, a key next step includes assessing the cumulative effects of the PSAR program to understand how our actions are impacting salmon recovery and better support decision making in the region. This presentation will examine approaches to evaluate the PSAR program by exploring success criteria, measurements of program outcomes, and the development of a prioritization process that adapts to new science and information

Identifying Stressor Risk to Biological Health in Streams and Small Rivers of Western Washington

An essential step in watershed management is the identification of key natural and anthropogenic stressors influencing important biological indicators of watershed health, such as the benthic index of biotic integrity, or B-IBI. Relative risk analysis provides quantifiable associations between biological response and stressors of concern, making this a useful tool to identify potential risks to aquatic biota. For this project, water quality, sediment chemistry, and physical habitat data (146 sites) from the Washington State Department of Ecology’s Status and Trends Monitoring for Watershed Health and Salmon Recovery Program were used to determine the relative importance and strength of relationship between benthic macroinvertebrate metrics and environmental stressors in western Washington streams and small rivers. The results presented here provide essential information needed to protect sites in excellent biological health and identify potential sources of impairment, which complement monitoring programs and support watershed management decisions

Statistical Power Comparison of Two Sampling Protocols for Riverine Snails

We compared the statistical power of two alternative sampling designs to detect changes in threatened and endangered snail species populations in the Mid-Snake River (Idaho). Our goal was to determine which sampling approach would have the best chance of detecting a change associated with different hydroelectric project management scenarios. We summarized the data as 1) the average number of snails collected across quadrats (density/m2) and 2) the proportion of quadrats that had snails present. We calculated the minimum detectable difference that each measure could detect with a two-sample t test. The density measure was highly variable and even a complete loss of snails failed to represent a statistically significant change for most sites. The precision improved somewhat when density was log-transformed, the number of replicate quadrats was increased, and larger sampling quadrat used; however, statistical power to detect change remained low. In contrast, proportion measures were much more precise and could detect a 34% reduction in the proportion of quadrats with snails present. When the number of quadrats was increased to 30, a 24% change could be detected and for 50 quadrats an 18% change. Proportion of quadrats with snails present was also highly correlated with the average density of snails (Pearson’s r = 0.91). In addition to being a more sensitive indicator, the proportion measure is quicker to observe for each sample which means that a larger area can be surveyed during the same amount of time.Fore, L.S. and W.H. Clark. 2005. Statistical Power Comparison of Two Sampling Protocols for Riverine Snails. Northwest Science 79:91-9