Prioritization Tool for Puget Sound Individual and Residential-Scale Best Management Practices (BMP) for Stormwater and Salmon Recovery

The Puget Sound Partnership and members of the Stormwater Outreach for Regional Municipalities (STORM) coalition formed a work group to evaluate individual and residential-scale best management practices (BMPs). The work group surveyed subject matter experts working on stormwater and salmon recovery in the Puget Sound region to identify a comprehensive list of residential stormwater and salmon recovery BMPs and evaluate the identified BMPs based on three technical and six interdisciplinary criteria. Using information collected from each survey, the work group created an open-source prioritization tool that can be used to rank stormwater and salmon recovery BMPs in Puget Sound. By linking the two prioritization processes together (stormwater and salmon recovery), and by using a common methodology, the work group cross-referenced a broad suite of individual and residential-scale BMPs, allowing for more integrated and informed management decisions. The results should prove useful in identifying and selecting content for stormwater and salmon recovery awareness and education campaigns, building social marketing programs, and prioritizing topics for grant applications. The prioritization tool provides a starting place that can frame, sharpen, and focus the scope of conversations regarding which BMPs to promote at a given time. We anticipate that this effort will inform future programmatic decisions as well as support investments made to increase beneficial behaviors and reduce detrimental ones for both stormwater and salmon recovery

Social Science for the Salish Sea: An Interactive Discussion to Build a Research Agenda

What do you think we need to know about people to advance the ecosystem recovery goals of our transboundary region? The Social Science for the Salish Sea (S4) project convened 40 researchers and practitioners from academic, governmental, non-profit and Indigenous organizations in Washington and British Columbia to scope an action-oriented “human dimensions” research agenda for our region. In this panel we will present our results, process, recommendations, and progress toward implementing the S4 agenda, and invite your questions and feedback in an interactive audience discussion. We identified 33 social science topics serving 4 major ecosystem recovery goals: ecological health, human well-being, social integrity, and social-ecological resilience. We then prioritized topics based on urgency, usefulness, awareness-raising potential, and fundability. The highest priority topic that emerged was: “How does, and will, climate change impact the holistic health and well-being of Salish Sea communities?” Other priority topics included the effects of urbanization and development on social-ecological systems; whether the legal framework is facilitating ecological goals; how representation, or lack thereof, of a diversity of people in resource decision-making affects outcomes for those people; and how Indigenous knowledge systems and governance can be meaningfully applied in ecosystem recovery. In discussion, we will invite you, the audience, to further develop the proposed topics based on your own human dimensions research needs and imagine ways to apply the agenda in your own work. With this first effort to create a social science research agenda for the Salish Sea, we aim to inspire and support new research that illuminates the human causes and consequences of environmental change, and identifies socially feasible, equitable, and efficient pathways to ecosystem recovery. Panelists: Sara Jo Breslow, PhD Environmental Anthropologist and Freelance Consultant Research Scientist, University of Washington Leah Kintner Former Ecosystem Recovery Manager Puget Sound Partnership Dr. David J. Trimbach Research Associate Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Oregon State University Nathan J. Bennett, PhD Freelance Consultant Chair, People and the Ocean Specialist Group, IUCN Principal, The Peopled Seas Initiative Erin Hanson Policy Advisor & Manager Sacred Trust Treaty, Lands, and Resources Department, Tsleil-Waututh Nation Leif Anderson Economist, NWFS NOAA Dr. Jamie Donatuto Community Environmental Health Analyst Swinomish Indian Tribal Community Heather Cole The Nature Conservanc