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PSNERP-Nearshore Science Team (NST)
Monthly Meeting Synthesis
7-8 February 2005

Venue:

Dean’s Conference Room, Ocean Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Attendance:

Si Simenstad (UW), Curtis Tanner (USFWS), Fred Goetz (ACOE), Hugh Shipman (DOE), Tom Leschine (UW), Kurt Fresh (NOAA Fisheries), Tom Mumford (DNR), Guy Gelfenbaum (USGS), Megan Dethier (UW), Miles Logsdon (UW), Phebe Drinker (UW), Randy Shuman (King Co.), Bernie Hargrave (USACE), and Jan Newton (UW)

Guests: Katrina Hoffman and Alexander (Sascha) Petersen (UW-SMA); Eric Grossman, USGS

Primary Meeting Topics:

(1) Future Without Project update
(2) VEC white paper status and Social VEC white paper
(3) Science Morning: Salmon in Nearshore Puget Sound (Kurt Fresh, NOAA)

Future Without Project Working Group (Fred):

  • Status prepatory to Working Group meeing 2/14.
  • Marina Alberti promised to provide literature survey; which she will be sending out beforehand, which will provide background for their recommendation of the scenario building approach
  • Considerable discussion about link between analysis of alternative approaches and recommendation of approach (What Alberti group is presently doing) and full analysis of Future Without Condition (to be contracted), and the Change Analysis methodology
  • Key NST recommendations to Working Group:
    • Is the Working Group considering a product representing changes in the region at a large (e.g., basin) scale, not a pixel scale? But, small, shoreline associated watersheds should be addressed in aggregate.
    • Discuss policies in existence that will affect coastal watersheds in aggregate.
    • Make sure that there is a focus on specific nearshore oriented units, e.g., docks, bulkheads, etc. Thus, both direct and indirect change should be addressed by WG.
    • Is Working Group going to consider changes in both general and spatially specific uses of shorelines?
    • Will it address shifts between public and private ownership?
      • i. Need to address persistence of conditions vs. new impacts: How is Future Without analysis going to take into account that historic change, much of which is no longer allowed, has an impact now?
    • Will changes in cultures be a part of future change?
    • Has FWOP considered how external (non-NST) peer review (of first stage recommendations) will be done?
  • We’re still missing social/cultural drivers; perhaps advantage of scenario building approach?

VEC White Papers (Megan and Tom L.):

  • VEC white papers update (Megan):
    • Joe Buchanan doing white paper on water and shorebirds: NST recommend focus on: Dunlin, Black Oyster Catchers, and Surf Scoters. (If 4, then Pigeon Guillemots).
    • Authors struggling with attribute table; designed to provide “key” habitat requirements for VECs by life history stage
  • VEC workshop scheduled for Tuesday, March 14, where attendees (primarily authors and NST will work through each VEC conceptual model; revising and indicating strength of interactions
  • these conceptual models will ultimately get packaged into either one “chapter” or accompany each VEC white paper
  • VEC white paper peer review: How to pay for?
  • Social Value VEC paper (Tom L.):
    • How and why social values apply to VECs? E.g., value need not be expressed in monetary terms. How non-market values build upon or substitute for values derived from market interactions
    • Alternative conceptual models of valuation: (a) social values as a function of ecological services; (b) social values that do not derive directly from the levels of ecosystem services provided; or (c) value of ecosystem compared to the values of individual ecosystem components (VECs) (Costanza et al. 1997): Whole not necessarily equal to the sum of the parts
    • Issue: Valueed Social Components vs. Valued Ecosystem Components suggests two conceptual models of human value in natural world: (1) Model 1—direct ecosystem services (accounting sheet approach), or (2) Model 2---bundles of services = values beyond sum of components

Science Morning (Kurt Fresh): Salmon in Nearshore Puget Sound

  • Take-home points:
    • LOTS of variation in salmon life histories, habitat requirements, etc. Strength of nearshore occurrence and use varies among both species and life history types (reminder: two listed ESUs illustrate strongest links to nearshore Puget Sound)
    • Salmon populations are distinguished based on where they spawn.
    • Fish move around - salmon recovery in Snohomish is dependent on south sound restoration!
  • Conceptual model needs to consider:
    • Species and four life history strategies (for Chinook)
    • Four habitat types for salmon, and sub-types such as channel network systems
    • Scales: Site scale attributes – access and quality and landscape scale – access and quality
    • Kurt’s conceptual model stops at functional response, but it can go much further for salmon (i.e. to effects on function, performance, and viability, etc); ultimate metric in salmon world is viability – that’s where CM should end; problem is, viability involves entire life cycle, and hard to partition out just nearshore influence
  • Shoreline stressors affecting salmon in nearshore Puget Sound: Kurt will sketch out before 3/14 workshop, but prefers this to be a discussion with NST.
  • Has highlighted three stressors Kurt views as most useful case studies (e.g., most data, strong understanding): diking of delta wetlands, removal of pocket estuaries and coastal watershed changes; contaminants have impact on transition from fresh water to salt water, but out in greater sound, deep water, not sure how big an impact they have on salmon.
    • Multiple and cumulative stressors still a challenge, e.g., multiple docks What are the effects of multiple docks on top of bulkheads, sewage outfall, and lots of boats docking (not what are the affects of a dock or a bulkhead)?
  • Major information needs:
    • Know relatively little about what salmon do in PS nearshore! i.e. what do they do in the eelgrass?
    • Biological processes in PS – what’s going on that’s going to impact salmon? e.g. competition – capacity of nearshore salmon habitats.
    • Should probably add “Landscape Scale” implications: How do we organize, prioritize, etc, restoration at the landscape scale to contribute to viability, etc.?