Introduction to the Regional Adaptive Management Plan for Puget Sound Salmon Recovery
Regional Adaptive Management and Monitoring Plan for Puget Sound
December 2006
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank and acknowledge members of the Adaptive Management and Monitoring Steering Committee (AMM Steering Committee), many of whom spent considerable amounts of time providing guidance, comments, and input to this draft adaptive management and monitoring plan. A number of them also helped to write significant portions of this draft document.
The AMM Steering Committee, in addition to meeting regularly and attending a two-day workshop in January of 2006 to help shape this plan, was divided into sub-committees organized around the plan’s chapters to enable them to dive more deeply into specific topics according to their expertise and interest. Sub-committee members provided detailed comments and edits to their respective chapters.
The AMM Steering Committee was guided by the work of Steve Yaffee and Sheila Schueller, University of Michigan, Ecosystem Management Initiative (EMI). The framework for this plan is based on the EMI model and we are grateful to Steve and Sheila for planning and facilitating two workshops and being available for consultation over phone and email numerous times.
Adaptive Management and Monitoring Steering Committee
(Sub-committee assignments and contributions to plan sections are shown in parentheses)
Elizabeth Babcock, NOAA Fisheries (Overall plan comments)
John Barr, Independent Consultant, formerly Nisqually Tribe (Hatchery)
William Beattie, NW Indian Fisheries Commission (Harvest)
Susan Bishop, NOAA Fisheries (Hatchery, Harvest, H-Integration, and Verification & Accountability)
Richard Brocksmith, Hood Canal Coordinating Council (Habitat)
Alan Chapman, Lummi Nation (Overall plan comments)
Treva Coe, Nooksack Tribe (Habitat)
Ken Currens, NW Indian Fisheries Commission and Puget Sound TRT (Hatchery, H-Integration)
Jeanette Dorner, Nisqually Tribe (H-Integration)
Jim Erckmann, Seattle Public Utilities (Overall plan comments, habitat focus)
Kurt Fresh, NOAA Fisheries (Overall plan comments, habitat focus)
Andy Haas, Snohomish County (Habitat)
Paul Hage, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe (H-Integration)
Michael Kern, Long Live the Kings (H-Integration)
Sara LaBorde, WA Department of Fish and Wildlife (H-Integration, Verification & Accountability)
Kirk Lakey, WA Department of Fish and Wildlife (H-Integration, Habitat)
Steve Leider, Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office (Habitat, State Status and Trends Monitoring focus)
Gino Lucchetti, King County (H-Integration, Habitat)
Sara McKearnan, Seattle Public Utilities (Habitat)
Lloyd Moody, Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office (Overall plan comments)
Brian Murray, King County WRIA 8 (Habitat)
Erik Neatherlin, WA Department of Fish and Wildlife (Verification & Accountability, Habitat)
Steve Ralph, Stillwater Sciences (Habitat)
Kit Rawson, Tulalip Tribes (Harvest, H-Integration)
Mary Ruckelshaus, NOAA Fisheries and Puget Sound TRT (Habitat, H-Integration)
Russell Scranton, NOAA Fisheries (Overall plan comments)
Michael Schmidt, Long Live the Kings (Hatchery, H-Integration)
Jim Scott, WA Department of Fish and Wildlife and Puget Sound TRT (H-Integration)
David St. John, King County (Verification & Accountability primary author, H-Integration)
Gordon Thomson, King County WRIA 9 (Habitat)
Laurie Vigue, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (Habitat)
Chris Weller, Point No Point Treaty Council (Harvest)
Table of Contents
Introduction to the Regional Adaptive Management and Monitoring Plan
Goals and objectives for the Regional Adaptive Management and Monitoring Plan 1
Goal 1
Objectives 2
General structure of the Regional Adaptive Management and Monitoring Plan 4
Goals and objectives 5
Strategy to achieve those goals and objectives 5
Monitoring plan to assess progress toward goals and objectives 5
Sequencing Regional Adaptive Management and Monitoring Plan implementation 7
Example timeline 7
Verification and Accountability (V&A) System 9
V&A System Design Drivers 9
Context 9
Purposes 11
Principles for V&A System Development and Implementation 12
Anticipated Audience and Users 13
Including Multiple Species Recovery Efforts 13
The Role of Independent Review 13
Key V&A System Elements 14
Focus Questions 14
Indicators and Metrics 16
Benchmarks and Triggers 18
Reporting Progress 20
Implementing Effectiveness Approaches 21
Action 1: Verifying Recovery Action Implementation 21
Action 2: Establishing Accountability 22
Action 3: Adapting Recovery Strategies 23
Action 4: Improving the V&A System 24
Information Access and Management 25
Timeline for V&A System Development and Implementation 26
Habitat Protection and Restoration 27
Goals and Objectives for Regional Habitat Protection and Restoration 27
Goals 27
Objectives 27
Habitat protection and restoration strategy 28
Habitat protection 29
Nearshore 29
Water quality 30
In-stream flows 30
Forests and fish 30
Farms and fish 31
Organizing framework for monitoring habitat actions 31
Short and long-term results from habitat management actions 32
Monitoring habitat protection and restoration actions 33
Project-level effectiveness summarized for a regional monitoring program 42
Baseline, status, and trends monitoring of regional habitat metrics 47
Harvest Management 55
Goals and Objectives 55
Goals 55
Objectives 55
Harvest management strategy 56
Monitoring harvest management actions 58
Hatchery management 65
Goals and objectives for hatchery management 65
Goals 65
Hatchery management strategy 66
Monitoring hatchery management actions 73
H-integration 79
Goals and Objectives for Regional H-integration 79
H-integration strategy 80
Monitoring H-integration actions 81
Appendices 96
Appendix A: Strategy Map for Puget Sound Salmon Recovery 97
Appendix B: The Puget Sound Protection Initiative 98
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Glossary
Action
A specific program, project, or change in behavior intended to achieve one or more outcomes.
Benchmark
An intermediate target to measure progress after a given period of action implementation using a certain indicator; a reference point or standard against which to compare performance or achievements (see Verification and Accountability System section for link to definition source).
Critical uncertainties
Uncertain relationships or conditions that are critical to making good decisions.
Effectiveness monitoring
Evaluating whether actions produced the hypothesized physical change (this document does not consider biological change part of effectiveness monitoring, see validation monitoring).
Goals
High-level statements about overall aims or purposes.
H-integration
The coordinated combination of actions among all the H-sectors — harvest, hatchery and habitat (inclusive of hydro) — that together work to achieve the goal of recovering self-sustaining, harvestable salmon runs.
Implementation monitoring
Evaluating whether agreed to actions were performed as promised.
Indicator
An aggregation and synthesis of related metrics
Metric
A metric is the condition or activity of interest that is actually measured or counted (see Verification and Accountability System section for link to definition source).
Objectives
Specific statements that describe elements of a goal in measurable terms and break the goals down into more specific pieces.
Status monitoring
Characterizing the immediate condition of a specified metric; in this document status monitoring refers to the immediate condition of habitat attributes.
Strategy
Describes how we will achieve our goals and outcomes; includes the methods or approaches that set the path from current conditions to the desired future state and guide the creation of actions.
Trend monitoring
Characterizing changes in conditions of a specified metric over time.
Trigger
A predetermined value of an indicator that helps to think about whether and when action is needed; trigger points activate thought and/or action (see Verification and Accountability System section for definition source).
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Introduction to the Regional Adaptive Management and Monitoring Plan for Puget Sound Salmon Recovery
This document contains draft content for the Puget Sound Regional Salmon Recovery Adaptive Management and Monitoring Plan. Some language in this document is from the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Plan and other related documents produced by Shared Strategy for Puget Sound. Members of the Adaptive Management and Monitoring Steering Committee made contributions to this draft. This plan is an evolving document that will change as needs and new knowledge arises.
A. Goals and objectives for the Regional Adaptive Management and Monitoring Plan for Puget Sound Salmon Recovery
Purpose and use. The primary purpose of this adaptive management and monitoring plan is to facilitate the Puget Sound region in meeting its goal of recovering self-sustaining, harvestable salmon runs in a systematic and informed manner. This plan is not intended for a lay audience, but for the people implementing recovery actions and responsible for making salmon recovery decisions in the Puget Sound region. This includes state, tribal, federal, and local levels of governments and other regional stakeholders that have an interest in and responsibilities for achieving salmon recovery. The monitoring plans contained in this document are not intended to be comprehensive for individual watersheds, but are considered as guidance for the information needed to make informed, adaptive decisions for salmon recovery at the ESU level and to gain knowledge that can inform local decision-makers. A regional perspective has the capacity to consider questions for the entire ESU in a way that may also have implications for individual salmon populations. The reporting and analysis from the monitoring results are also intended to maintain long-term support for recovery efforts. This plan strives to be consistent with evolving state and federal monitoring and adaptive management programs as well as to respect the unique needs of local watershed areas. The amount and type of information needed to make decisions will evolve as our knowledge changes.
Goal
The overall goal of the Regional Adaptive Management and Monitoring Plan for Puget Sound Salmon Recovery is to:
· Create a system that will enable us to learn from the results of salmon recovery activities and to create a structure that will adjust decisions accordingly to ensure that ESU and population based recovery goals are met efficiently and effectively.
The Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Plan, released in June 2005 by Shared Strategy for Puget Sound needs a strong adaptive management component. Adaptive management is the process of making decisions, implementing them, learning from the results of implementation and new science, and adjusting decisions as necessary in order to improve the certainty of achieving goals. The Recovery Plan is based on thousands of hours of technical and policy work. And although the work is based on the best available information on salmon recovery, the adaptive management process recognizes that the Recovery Plan’s key political and biological assumptions will need to be tested and adjusted as recovery efforts move forward.
Objectives
Considering the stated goal and intended audience, this adaptive management and monitoring plan has several specific objectives:
· Create a transparent information system (the Verification and Accountability System) that will enable the region to learn more about effective salmon recovery from the results of current recovery activities and update interested parties on the status of salmon recovery
· Create a regional adaptive management decision-making structure with a timeline that is as coordinated as possible between habitat, harvest, and hatchery sectors
· Support the NOAA endangered salmon delisting framework by providing data on Viable Salmonid Population (VSP) parameters and the status of listing factors
· Provide watersheds with guidance on the minimum set of regional metrics needed to assess salmon recovery
· Design and implement monitoring and research that tests the critical uncertainties (technical and policy) behind our recovery strategies and actions
To develop an adaptive framework that will achieve the goals and objectives above, Shared Strategy for Puget Sound adopted the Ecosystem Management Initiative (EMI) approach to ecosystem-based adaptive management developed at the University of Michigan. This four-stage approach is represented by the Evaluation Cycle (see Figure 1). Please note that some of the language used in the following description of the EMI approach comes from their document, Measuring Progress: An Evaluation Guide for Ecosystem and Community-based Projects (Version 3.1, 2004, http://www.snre.umich.edu/ecomgt/).
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Figure 1. A simplified representation of the Evaluation Cycle developed by the University of Michigan Ecosystem Management Initiative.
This process of evaluation is an iterative process that can be repeated as more information is gained through monitoring and research. Completing Stage A answers, “What are you trying to achieve?” By defining how a project will be known as a success, it is possible to develop goals and objectives that will guide the strategies and actions of that particular project. Nested within the strategies are threats that need to be minimized and assets that need to be exploited to achieve the stated goals and objectives. This linked picture representing how goals/objectives, threats/assets, and strategies/actions relate is known as a Situation Map, and has been drafted for Puget Sound salmon recovery (see Appendix A). The Puget Sound Situation Map is the general framework that introduces the specific strategies for salmon recovery and supports the text that makes up the regional adaptive management and monitoring plan.
Completing Stage B answers, “How will you know you are making progress,” and involves creating a framework for measuring progress. This framework defines evaluation questions and metrics (also known as “metrics”) and lead to the development of indicators that inform the decision-making process by describing how well strategies are progressing towards achieving stated goals and objectives. In each of the following monitoring sections, evaluation questions, metrics, and indicators are displayed in parallel to clearly demonstrate this logic. It should be remembered that this is specifically a regional adaptive management and monitoring plan. Thus, the recommended metrics and indicators inform decision-making and learning at a regional level. There continues to be a need for individual watersheds in Puget Sound to develop their own adaptive management and monitoring plans that link up with regional monitoring needs outlined in this plan and also address watershed-specific needs.
Completing Stage C answers, “How will you get the information you need,” and describes how data will be collected, who will collect it, where it will come from, and how it will be analyzed. When evaluation data are analyzed, Stage D answers, “How will you use this information in decision-making,” and describes what responses will prompt consideration of changing the course of actions or reconsidering overall strategies. This version of the adaptive management and monitoring plan will not answer these questions completely, so there is still technical work that needs to be done to evolve this document and fully implement adaptive management for Puget Sound salmon recovery.