DESCRIPTION
With newer information regarding Chinook and summer chum salmon use of nearshore habitats, and, the need to improve coordination between salmon recovery actions in individual watersheds and the overall ability to recover endangered salmon stocks, this project will fulfill large information and knowledge gaps relative to understanding nearshore ecosystem processes and pressures and their importance for salmonid use in Hood Canal. This project will produce a Nearshore Prioritization System for salmon habitat restoration and protection to deploy to all Hood Canal jurisdictions and their nearshore environments. A process to rank nearshore projects by restoration outcomes and recovery outputs will result.
There is significant and increasingly substantive information regarding Chinook salmon use of nearshore habitats in Puget Sound. Summer chum are also known to utilize the shoreline, although the data on this species is relatively sparce. There is increased emphasis on nearshore protection and restoration in Hood Canal, but there has not been a reliable tool to evaluate priority areas for such investments. This project proposes to address this problem by using existing data sets and methodologies to develop a prioritized list of actions for nearshore habitat restoration and protection, for the Hood Canal and Eastern Strain of Juan de Fuca. The project will compliment on going and proposed fish utilization research in Hood Canal by physically and functionally mapping Hood Canal nearshore functions and disturbances.
Landscape Scale Analysis
