Citation:

Mckane, Bob, B. Barnhart, P. Pettus, J. Halama, A. Brookes, K. Djang, T. Khangoankar, I. Kaplan, C. Harvey, H. Morzaria Luna, M. Schmidt, E. Howe, P. Levin, T. Francis, J. Baker, S. Stanley, AND C. Hume. A Science-Governance Partnership for Integrating Ecosystem Services into Puget Sound Restoration Planning. ACES 2018 Conference, Washington, DC, December 03 - 06, 2018.

Impact/Purpose:

This oral presentation is part of a ACES 2018 Conference special session – Governance barriers and opportunities for integrating ecosystem services into estuary and coastal management – to be held in Washington DC, December 3-6. This session will address the question, how can science-governance partnerships promote the development and implementation of innovative solutions for accelerating ecosystem recovery in threatened estuarine and coastal ecosystems? Our contribution to this session focuses on a new science-governance partnership of communities, tribes and ecosystem scientists working in the Puget Sound National Estuary and its contributing watersheds. Our partnership’s primary aim is to integrate local knowledge and goals with state-of-the-art ecological modeling to develop more effective management plans for restoring degraded ecosystem services in the approximately 13,000 square-mile Puget Sound Basin. A key goal is to ensure that modeled outcomes target stakeholder priorities for protecting and restoring vital services, for example, clean drinking water, flood control, abundant fish and wildlife, recreational and cultural opportunities, and associated economic, social and health benefits. The ACES 2018 Conference is an ideal venue for this presentation because it includes a growing international assembly of professionals, researchers, and policy-makers focused on protection and restoration of ecosystem services. The Conference brings together this community in partnership with Ecosystem Markets and the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP). This open forum facilitates sharing of experiences, methods, and tools for assessing and incorporating ecosystem services into public and private decisions.

Description:

Numerous studies have established that impacts from mounting population and climatic pressures are decreasing the capacity of coastal watersheds and estuaries to provide services essential to human health and well-being – clean drinking water, flood protection, habitat for fish and wildlife, and many other economic, social and health benefits (e.g., Barbier et al. 2011). The Puget Sound National Estuary in Washington State, USA, is one example of this global problem and search for solutions. Puget Sound communities, tribes, state and federal governments have committed substantial resources to restoring terrestrial and marine ecosystem services. However, jurisdictional barriers have often promoted a fragmented approach to restoration planning, and decision makers often do not have access to scientific information and tools for anticipating environmental, economic and social tradeoffs associated with different decision choices. Here we describe an example of a Puget Sound science-governance partnership aimed at bringing together ecosystem scientists and restoration planners representing local communities and tribes. The goal of this partnership is to more tightly integrate ecosystem service concepts and modeling into estuarine and coastal watershed planning and management. Currently, local planners and managers face the difficult challenge of extrapolating impacts of their restoration actions over time and space and across jurisdictional boundaries. Similarly, ecosystem scientists find it difficult to accurately model large coastal watersheds such as Puget Sound (>31,000 km^2) without the detailed on-the-ground knowledge that local planners and managers possess. Therefore, our partnership seeks to integrate the expertise of both groups. Together, we are using a state-of-the-art, coupled terrestrial-marine ecosystem modeling framework to help local planners visualize how effects of their decisions will propagate downstream with far reaching benefits and tradeoffs for terrestrial and marine ecosystem services. We will briefly describe this framework and examples of its ecosystem service applications within the Puget Sound ecosystem.

Record Details: