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PSNERP-Nearshore Science Team (NST)
Monthly Meeting Synthesis
11-12 January 2005

Venue:

WDFW Offices, 2nd Floor Conference Room, 600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA

Attendance:

Si Simenstad (UW), Curtis Tanner (USFWS), Fred Goetz (ACOE), Hugh Shipman (DOE), Tom Leschine (UW), Kurt Fresh (NOAA Fisheries), Tom Mumford (DNR), Doug Myers (PSAT), Guy Gelfenbaum (USGS), Megan Dethier (UW), Phebe Drinker (UW), Bernie Hargrave (USACE), and Jan Newton (UW)

Guests: Helen Barry, Peter Dowty and Blaine Reeves, WDNR

Primary Meeting Topics

(1) Relationship between management measures and nearshore ecosystem processes
(2) updates on VEC white papers preparation and workshop, Future Without Project and Change Analysis working groups
(3) Science Morning: Assessing nearshore eelgrass change in Puget Sound: SVMP results 2003-2005

Relationship between Management Measures and Nearshore Ecosystem Processes (Curtis):

  • Purpose: link management measures to nearshore ecosystem processes as a systematic (matrix) approach to setting priorities; designed to help managers make intelligent decisions;
  • matrix is a tool to narrow potential management measures down to most-scientifically based;
  • add solar radiation as process?
  • should build in detail, constraints, caveats and other considerations into management measures white papers;
  • need to incorporate direction of change, and whether direct or indirect interaction, and designate level of uncertainty; and,
  • consider explicitly identifying as structural or process-based action.

Update On Status of VEC White Papers (Megan Dethier):

  • Status:
    • salmon (Fresh): draft in and reviewed
    • eelgrass/kelp (Mumford): to be completed and sent for review to Doug, Curtis, Si and Kurt, by 20th
    • marine riparian (Brennen): underway
    • forage fish (Pentilla): underway
    • great blue heron: starting
    • bluffs (Johannessen): started
    • marine bird and shorebird (Buchanan?): still have not found an author
    • orcas: author not yet under contract
    • social values (Leschine and SMA students): an overarching societal values paper
  • Workshop scheduled for March 14, to bring VEC authors together and work through conceptual model (Level 4) and attributes for each VEC; will try to draft VEC-based conceptual models before

Update on Future Without Project Working Group progress (Fred):

  • Working Group has reconstituted to conducted review of approaches and Marina Alberti had developed her selected: Scenario building is the selected approach
  • NST primary input is to identify important drivers and to provide what the currency will be, advising PMT and SC on technical approach; NST will not have the same role as in the other work groups and analyses
  • Curtis: a “marketing tool” to sell decision makers on need for restoration plan; overlap between change analysis and FWP is ecosystem stressors; in theory, stressors will be represented in development threat analysis that will become available from PSAT
  • Examples: impervious surface, non-native vegetation and armoring
  • Level of uncertainty has not been addressed by anyone
  • Guy G: need to remember that scenario building is not modeling; the scenario is only the endpoint or bounding of the model
  • Two questions need to be asked of Marina:
  • 1. How will she plan for validation of her scenarios? (Phase II question.)
    2. How to ensure comparability between change analysis and SWO projections?

Update on Change Analysis Working Group progress (Si):

  • Developing different analysis approaches for direct (where time frame is 1850 to modern) and indirect (hindcast and inferred) change, with different accounting units for: (1) shorelines (i.e., drift cells), (2) deltas and estuaries, and (3) rocky shores
  • One analytical product is transition matrix, which will quantify shifts in shoreline type, association, and attributes
  • Attributes of Hindcast and inferred change involve drainage/watershed change such as: Impervious surfaces; land cover/land use; slope, aspect, geology; and roadways
  • Next meeting is 6 February, based on CommEnspace presentation of how these approaches work or do not work

Science Morning (Helen Barry, Peter Dowty and Blaine Reeves of DNR):

  • Description of Puget Sound Assessment and Monitoring Program (“PSAMP”)
  • Program started in March 2000, sampling in June 2000 and started rotating design in 2004; starting to study stressors in 2006
  • Focus is on pattern, not process, in Zostera marina, but keeping track of Z. japonica
  • Approach involves stratified, two-stage: total survey and probabilistic sampling using random selection of sites from each stratum, 20% site rotation each year, based on line-intercept sampling in summer
  • Delineating eelgrass “habitat” to -20 ft lower limit (but go deeper) to OHHW
  • Separate flats from linear fringe (1000 m) segments: stratified by narrow fringe, wide fringe, tidal flats, and core sampling sites
  • Distinguish five regions at regional scale, but collapse strata for analysis
  • Goal for statistical detection: 20% change with at least 80% power over 10 years
  • Videography along random transects within site, = about 110 sites per year
  • Assess for: (a) annual status, (b) interannual changes, and (c) long-term trend
  • Documented ~20,000 ha, with highly concentrated distribution in Padilla Bay and Samish Bay (together =>25%)
  • Significant change only 2003-2004 (70% increase) overall; Hood Canal indicates only area with consistent change, 2001-2004 (three years of consecutive losses)
  • Also losses at head of embayments in San Juan Islands (e.g., Westcott Bay); in 2005, found stronger evidence for Z. marina losses in Hood Canal, particularly in south
  • Next steps: process/stressor studies funded in 2005-2007 biennium, including intensive monitoring, analysis and modeling at selected sites
  • Primary discussion point: other metrics should be considered, such as epiphyte load and macroalgae, and patch scale change