EVALUATING THE HEALTH OF PUGET SOUND
The state’s goals to restore and protect Puget Sound are ambitious and must be guided by reliable, high-quality scientific data to be successful. The Partnership’s support for environmental monitoring is based on our need to:
- Track the status of key ecosystem components and attributes
- Assess the effectiveness of our restoration and protection actions
- Evaluate progress toward recovery
- Support adaptive management processes and decisionmaking at many scales
We rely on several initiatives and monitoring partnerships to provide the data that serves as the foundation for our recovery and protection actions.
PUGET SOUND VITAL SIGNS
To track progress toward recovery goals for Puget Sound, the Partnership chose a specific set of measures called the Puget Sound Vital Signs. The Vital Signs gauge the health of Puget Sound in a way that is scientifically valid and also resonates with the public. Tracking and reporting of Vital Signs is the foundation of the shared measurement system the Partnership relies on to show collective impact. LEARN MORE
EFFECTIVENESS MONITORING
Many restoration and management actions have been effective in restoring ecosystem components and processes in Puget Sound, but much of the evidence of success is found in technical documents that are not easy to access. We are reviewing scientific reports to distill information about what’s working to restore Puget Sound. This information, once vetted by regional experts, is presented in fact sheets and narrative summaries that can be used to help develop effective programs and projects that align with the Puget Sound Action Agenda and accelerate the recovery of Puget Sound. LEARN MORE
THE PUGET SOUND ECOSYSTEM MONITORING PROGRAM (PSEMP)
Environmental monitoring in Puget Sound is conducted by many state and federal agencies, local governments, tribes, citizen groups, and others. While every monitoring organization has its unique mandates and objectives, the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program, or PSEMP, serves as an overarching, voluntary body of representatives sharing a common goal to coordinate, improve, and focus these many efforts in support of our common desire to protect and recover Puget Sound. PSEMP does this by providing a venue for discussion, collaboration, coordination, collective guidance, and communication among monitoring agencies and organizations operating at a variety of scales. LEARN MORE
HUMAN WELLBEING
In July 2015, the Partnership’s Leadership Council adopted nine new or revised Vital Signs with associated indicators for Human Health and Quality of Life. These Vital Signs address human wellbeing as it relates to people’s engagement with the natural environment of Puget Sound and include familiar aspects of human health that contribute to our wellbeing, such as physical and psychological health, as well as social, cultural, and economic wellbeing and governance, or the way that people participate in decisionmaking. LEARN MORE