January 29, 2014
PSEMP Nearshore Work Group
Monitoring Inventory and Data Gap Analysis
Participants
Names and affiliation of those who contributed to meetings, inventory, and gap development:
Name
Affiliation
Name
Affiliation
Trina Bayard
Jim Johannessen
George Kaminsky
Hugh Shipman
Helen Berry
Pete Dowty
Jeff Gaeckle
Fred Short
Carrie Byron
Tina Whitman
Keith Dublanica
Paul Cereghino
Casey Rice
Kurt Fresh
Mindy Rowse
Greg Williams
Audubon
Coastal Geologic Services
Department of Ecology
Department of Ecology
DNR Eelgrass program
DNR Eelgrass program
DNR Eelgrass program
DNR Eelgrass program
EPA
Friends of the San Juans
GSRO
NOAA
NOAA, NWFSC
NOAA, NWFSC
NOAA, NWFSC
NOAA, NWFSC
Bruce Jones
Todd Hass
Barbara Rosenkotter
Paul Dorn
Eric Grossman
Steve Rubin
Jeff Cordell
Megan Dethier
Bonnie Becker
Jason Toft (coordinator)
Randy Carman
Phillip Dionne
Betsy Lyons
Sandie O'Neill
Barbara Bennett
NWIFC
Puget Sound Partnership
San Juan County
Suquamish Tribe
USGS
USGS
UW
UW – FHL
UW – Tacoma
UW/Sea Grant
WDFW
WDFW
WDFW
WDFW
WSU Beach Watchers
Charge to the Nearshore workgroup
The Nearshore work group is an independent collaboration of monitoring practitioners,
researchers, and data users from across the region that was formed in autumn 2013 as part of
the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program (PSEMP). The goals of PSEMP are to evaluate
progress toward ecosystem recovery, improve the scientific basis of management actions, and
coordinate monitoring efforts. PSEMP is directed by a steering committee, which asked the
Nearshore work group to complete a monitoring inventory and gap analysis (PSEMP 20121)
similar to efforts completed or in progress by other work groups. The main tasks were to:
 Create a monitoring inventory of efforts that have a broad spatial and temporal scale.
 Identify gaps that should be addressed.
 Prioritize the top 5 gaps.
The main three Puget Sound Partnership (PSP) Vital Sign indicators that applied to the
Nearshore work group are: (1) Eelgrass, (2) Shoreline Armoring, and (3) Estuaries. The
1
PSEMP. 2012. Steering Committee Guidance to Workgroups: March-December, 2012.
https://sites.google.com/a/psemp.org/psemp/home/workplan-and-guidance.
monitoring inventory and gaps were not limited to these, and identified nearshore gaps both
related to and beyond the vital signs. Other PSEMP work groups operating a similar process
have some conceptual overlap with the nearshore (e.g., birds, forage fish); communication with
other work groups sought to limit redundancy of the inventories and establish potential overlap
in gaps.
Highlights of the Monitoring Inventory
The Nearshore work group identified 21 monitoring programs that have a broad Sound-wide
range and that are mostly ongoing active programs. A full listing can be found in the Excel
Spreadsheet “Nearshore Monitoring Inventory.” Each program entry includes information on
main objectives, measurements, legal mandates, estimated costs, funding source, location of
reports and websites, and spatial and temporal scales. Lead agencies responsible for the
programs represented a broad spectrum (WDFW, PSNERP, DNR, PSAMP, UW, NWFSC, NOAA,
TNC, USGS, SRSC).
A summary of the key components of the monitoring inventory shows that most programs have
a component of status and trends and a link to one of the PSP Vital Signs and indicator
measurements (Table 1):
(1) Shoreline Armoring: Extent of shoreline armoring, evaluation of new, replacement, and
removed armoring.
(2) Eelgrass: Area of eelgrass, sites of increasing and decreasing coverage.
(3) Estuaries: Area of estuarine wetlands restored to tidal flooding in Puget Sound’s large
river deltas.
Effectiveness monitoring is also covered by programs focusing on restoration monitoring at the
major river deltas (Table 1; see full inventory for details). Some current monitoring programs
also address indicators beyond the Vital Signs, such as (1) floating and understory kelp
monitoring, (2) measurements of biotic diversity, and (3) measurements of physical and
biological parameters at armored and unarmored sites, and at perennial stream deltas with
varying urban gradients.
Table 1. Summary of key components from the monitoring inventory.
Topic
Armoring
Monitoring Program Name
Puget Sound Shoreline Armoring
Lead Agency
WDFW
Armoring
PSNERP Armoring Inventory
Compilation
ShoreZone
PSNERP
Armoring
DNR/PSAMP
Short Description
Evaluation of Hydraulic Project
Approvals issued for shoreline
armoring in Puget Sound.
Compilation of Sound-wide
armoring data.
Comprehensive inventory of
marine shoreline characteristics,
including armoring.
Armoring
Armoring study: central, south,
and north sound
UW
Biotic Diversity
Intertidal biotic community
monitoring
Submerged Vegetation
Monitoring Program
DNR
Kelp
Floating and understory kelp
DNR
Biotic Diversity
Urban Gradients
NWFSC
Estuary
Restoration
ESRP Delta Adaptive
Management, including
restoration monitoring at
Stillaguamish, Nisqually, Skagit,
and Snohomish deltas
WDFW/NOAA,
TNC, USGS, SRSC
Eelgrass
DNR
Study of numerous physical and
biological parameters at paired
armored and unarmored
beaches.
Low-shore detailed biotic
surveys (SCALE study).
Annual monitoring of Puget
Sound eelgrass area and depth
distribution.
Annual aerial photographybased mapping of canopy
extent.
Study at small perennial streams
that flow directly into Puget
Sound with varying degrees of
land-use impairment.
An effort to define monitoring
goals and fund efforts to inform
capital investments in delta
restoration.
Highlights of the Gaps
Based on the inventory of existing monitoring, the Nearshore work group identified 26 gaps in
our knowledge of the system. A full listing can be found in the Excel Spreadsheet “Nearshore
Priority Gaps.” Each entry includes information on what the gap is, why it is important, the
approximate cost, and other notes. There is a large range in gaps identified, including gaps
related to the PSP Vital Signs as well as gaps beyond the Vital Signs. Some gaps identified
beyond the Vital Signs include (1) other physical and biological covariates of ecosystem function
such as measurements of substrate composition and biotic diversity, (2) understanding of
ecosystem processes and functions involving stressors, drift cells, thresholds, and linkages, (3)
integrated frameworks for data management, (4) other features of the nearshore such as kelp,
riparian vegetation, and driftwood, (5) understanding of predicted changes such as sea-level
rise on estuarine habitat, and expansion of aquaculture activities, and (6) a survey for nonindigenous species.
After the list of gaps was compiled, work group participants were asked by the PSEMP steering
committee to rank the gaps in order to develop a prioritized subset of the top 5 gaps (Table 2).
This task was asked of all work groups in order to facilitate (1) cross-reference between work
groups on their prioritized gaps, and (2) a basis for the steering committee to move forward
with criteria on further prioritization. The top 5 gaps represented the three PSP Vital Signs of
shoreline armoring, estuaries, and eelgrass, as well as physical covariates that shape nearshore
biological communities (e.g., sediment characteristics and invertebrate diversity).
Table 2. Top 5 priority gaps.
What is the
approximate cost?
500,000
What is the gap?
Shoreline Armoring: Process-based
monitoring at the drift cell scale related to
functions of the nearshore and any
"thresholds" of percent armored
Why is it important?
This would identify at what point we see any
thresholds in the percent of shoreline that is
armored, in measurements of nearshore
process and function. This could in turn be
used to prioritize restoration actions that
would seek to move percent of armoring
below certain target thresholds. Relates to
the Shoreline Armoring indicator of the Vital
Signs.
Physical covariates of biotic signals:
Bathymetry/topography (i.e., elevation),
substrate composition (e.g., grain size),
and sediment accretion and transport.
General aim to monitor nearshore physical
attributes that shape nearshore biological
communities.
Provide context/understanding for any
changes in monitored biological components
(e.g., eelgrass, biotic diversity), as physical
components are known to structure
nearshore communities. Might not be readily
available elsewhere (too shallow for standard
sonar surveys, too deep for lidar). Would
answer such questions as: are Puget Sound
beaches sediment-limited? Has armoring of
Puget Sound shorelines left beaches
"sediment starved", or are other sediment
sources sufficient to keep beaches in an
equilibrium? How are estuaries likely to
evolve in the face of climate change (with or
without restoration)?
500,000
Estuaries: Data collection and analysis
improvements are needed that
standardize estuarine area footprints,
baseline conditions, and restoration
metrics
Greater precision in the measurements of
estuarine area, connectivity, and baseline
conditions are needed in order to accurately
measure restoration response. Relates to the
Estuaries indicator of the Vital Signs.
250,000
Shoreline Armoring: Data collection
improvements are needed that improve
the precision of the current baseline.
Because the rate of change is small
compared to the total existing armoring,
data should probably be based primarily
on the HPA system but many bulkheads
never get permitted. Therefore data
should be supplemented with local
shoreline permitting, federal permits, and
some sort of directed field validation
process starting with good quality field
mapping that will attempt to incorporate
non-permitted activities.
The current baseline is inaccurate, methods
are not well documented and are not
regionally consistent. A more accurate
baseline would lead to an improved, efficient
way of tracking armoring-related projects.
Relates to the Shoreline Armoring indicator of
the Vital Signs.
125,000
Eelgrass: Evaluate potential stressors that
have led to observed losses at monitoring
sites (DNR Stressor Response Program)
Understanding the dynamics behind losses
and gains of eelgrass habitat in Puget Sound
is critical to our knowledge of the Sound's
health. The factors that cause these changes
are crucial to understand in order to reach
the PSP goal of 20% increase in eelgrass by
2020. Relates to the Eelgrass indicator of the
Vital Signs.
200,000/yr will
expand the budget
of the DNR
Nearshore
Program stressor
focus to support
personnel,
equipment and
field efforts.
Summary of the Process and Key Concepts
Now that a baseline of the monitoring inventory and gaps has been developed, the Nearshore
work group advocates working with the PSEMP steering committee and other interested
groups in making progress on improving monitoring and research efforts in Puget Sound.
Three key concepts were repeatedly discussed during the development of the inventory and
gaps, and may help others in guiding further development and implementation of resources.
1. Emphasize “Understanding” Gaps: There are gaps that involve (1) better tracking or greater
precision in estimates as related to status and trends of indicators, and (2) a greater
understanding of why patterns or processes are occurring and how they can be improved.
Both of these are important, and should be combined in effort. When there is enough of an
inventory to know if there is or is not a problem, it is important to move forward and
understand why there is a problem and how we can fix it. For example, we know that
eelgrass is declining, estuarine wetland area is declining, and shoreline armoring is
increasing. For those issues, emphasis should be placed on starting to investigate and
understand the processes that drive change - whether that is eelgrass stressors, methods of
effective wetland restoration, thresholds and impacts of armoring, or even the sociology
and philosophy of shoreline stewardship.
2. Emphasize New Data Collections: There are knowledge questions that require (1) synthesis
and communication of existing data, and (2) collection of new data. By definition, the
inventory collated data collections, whereas the gaps require new collections of fieldgenerated data. New data collections are very important to further our understanding of
nearshore processes and generate data that will convince the public and the legislature of
the need for action, and therefore translate to political will to create change.
3. Emphasize Collaborative Interdisciplinary Frameworks: There are often fuzzy lines
between monitoring and research efforts, as well as parallel efforts across different
agencies and disciplines. Closer partnering and communication among agencies toward a
driver-response research and monitoring program would help form a nested nearshore
program that (1) stratifies hypothesis-based research at specific sites/reaches to quantify
variability in processes and ecosystem responses within (2) a larger regional study
framework that captures large-scale gradients in forcings, status and trends. Consistency of
thought can lead to consistency in priorities and effort, something PSEMP and PSP can hope
to accomplish with continued effort and collaboration with other longer-term programs to
develop a shared understanding and consensus that will help decision making.