Puget Sound Tidal Restriction and Wetland Mapping

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This project will address multiple regional data gaps for several regional salmon recovery programs (including NOAA’s Salmon Habitat Status and Trends Monitoring, PSP's Common Indicator and Vital Signs, WDFW’s Fish Passage Inventory, and ESRP’s Beach Strategies) and will support program goals and regional restoration planning at a regional scale for Puget Sound. We will leverage existing protocols, datasets, and regional expertise to produce consistent regional-scale mapping products that will be readily accessible through online mapping applications to support regional restoration planning and evaluation of progress towards recovery. This project will focus on developing data to support regional monitoring and reporting of habitat status and trends for two key habitats that can influence salmon habitat; (1) tidal wetland habitats and features that influence tidal connectivity, and (2) marine riparian habitat. This page focuses on describing the efforts to map tidal restrictions and wetlands. More information about marine riparian mapping can be found on the Puget Sound Marine Riparian Mapping page.

Cramer Fish Sciences has already completed Puget Sound Large River Delta Tidal Restriction and Wetland Mapping. This contract will build off of the protocols developed in that effort to continue mapping to the entire Puget Sound nearshore.

Project Goals and Objectives

  • Update regional data discovery, inventory, and spatial database spatial database of original datasets developed from the large river delta mapping project
  • Review regional data with aerial imagery; synthesize, correct, and update regional data features; digitize missing features; and attribute tidal restriction features (e.g., source, type, connectivity, and status) for rest of Puget Sound shoreline
  • Delineate and classify potential and current tidal wetland extents using tidal barrier features, associate tidal restriction features with tidal wetland polygons, and attribute tidal wetlands based on connectivity ratings
  • Conduct regional review and ground truthing to update and evaluate data accuracy
  • Synthesize nearshore tidal barrier and tidal wetland data with large river delta databases from the large river delta mapping project
  • Identify water crossing features for integration with WDFW’s FPDSI database and develop spatial inventory for future fish passage barrier assessment
  • Develop guidelines to support continued review and maintenance of the regional tidal restriction and tidal wetland spatial databases
  • Summarize tidal barrier and tidal wetland habitat extents by geographic (e.g., marine basin, Lead Entity boundaries), connectivity ratings, feature types, and sources to support regional habitat status and trends monitoring reporting
  • Publish spatial databases to online mapping application to make data readily accessible

Background

Puget Sound’s large river deltas and tidal wetland habitats associated with pocket estuaries, embayments, and other shoreline features provide critical rearing habitats, saltwater transition habitats, and migration corridors for salmon (Beamer et al. 2005; Beamer et al. 2018). Restoration of tidal connectivity or removal of features that block or restrict tidal processes represents a significant opportunity to increase functional and accessible tidally influenced habitat, and the area of functional (tidally connected) tidal wetland habitat is a regional salmon habitat indicator for large river deltas as well as pocket estuary and embayments in Puget Sound (see Puget Sound Partnership's Common Indicator and Vital Signs). However, many existing tidal restriction datasets are fragmented, inconsistent, incomplete, or outdated and therefore are difficult to use at a regional scale.

Significant progress was made in developing a consistent spatial database of tidal restriction and tidal wetland features through [PRISM Project #18-2250 for Puget Sound’s large river deltas. For that project, we used a combination of regional data and remote sensing to synthesize and correct regional data and map missing features. This was combined with regional review with local area experts and field validation surveys, and we found that our approach was efficient in creating a consistent, standardized, and up to date spatial database of tidal restriction features for Puget Sound’s large river deltas while also identifying and mapping many features missing from available regional datasets (≈45% of the mapped features were not included in regional data). This project will leverage the already compiled regional datasets, standardized spatial database, and remote sensing protocols to map tidal restriction features and tidal wetlands for the rest of the Puget Sound shoreline, which will create a consistent and up to date spatial database of tidal restriction and tidal wetland features for the entire Puget Sound region that will be readily accessible through online mapping applications.


Notes


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