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Protecting Aquatic Ecosystems: A Guide for Puget Sound Planners to Understand Watershed Processes

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Executive Summary

This document provides guidance for Puget Sound planners, resource managers, and consultants on how to better protect aquatic ecosystems, such as lakes, rivers, wetlands, and estuaries, by including information about watershed processes in resource management plans and regulatory actions. (Watershed processes means the delivery, movement, and loss of water, sediment, nutrients, toxins, pathogens, and large woody debris.) We do this through five steps that qualitatively describe these processes in a watershed. While we designed this document for use by those managing natural resources within the Puget Sound region, the steps can be applied to any region of the state.

The steps presented in this paper first identify the areas of the landscape that are important or key for maintaining watershed processes and then assess how much these areas have been altered by human activity. Finally, planners and managers can use this information to protect intact areas or restore altered areas. This can be done with restoration and protection plans, and by specifying the location, type, and density of development.

The five steps use existing environmental data and land use information. We designed this method to use readily available data and to be relatively simple, rapid, and inexpensive to apply. In addition, the method is adaptable to local situations and provides products that are easy to interpret and share with others.

This method is best used at the county or watershed scale. It is based on relationships at a watershed scale and so it does not establish a direct connection between alterations at the larger scale and ensuing impacts at the site scale. Thought it does not identify site-specific restoration needs or produce mitigation plans, it is an essential step to developing these plans.

The products of this method can be used in the following ways:

• Growth Management Act
  • Support protection of critical areas (e.g., Critical Areas Ordinance) by considering key areas for watershed processes.
  • Evaluate the risk of future land use activities on watershed processes.
• Shoreline Management Act
  • Conduct the characterization of ecosystem-wide processes.
  • Identify areas appropriate for restoration and protection as part of the restoration plan element.
  • Identify land use designations and development standards that protect ecosystem-wide processes.
  • Meet "no net loss" requirements while allowing for mitigation flexibility.
• State Environmental Policy Act and National Environmental Policy Act
  • Consider watershed processes in the development of mitigation plans
  • Provide information to meet the avoidance and minimization steps of "mitigation sequencing."
• Regulatory
  • Develop a predictable permitting environment.
  • Streamline the permitting process with mitigation, credits, and fees clearly established.
• Resource Planning
  • Use information on watershed processes to develop site-level restoration and protection plans.
  • Use the information to develop strategies to reduce the risk of further degradation.

How to use this guidance:

• If you are a planner, read:
  • Sections I and II to get an overview and basic understanding of the guidance and its potential usefulness to your needs
• If you are a technical specialist determining how to apply this guidance to a particular area, focus on:
  • Section II - Overview of the steps and expected products
  • Appendix A through G - Technical rationale for identifying key areas and alterations for each process
  • Appendix H - Mapping methods
• The application of this guidance requires expertise in the following areas: hydrology, geology, aquatic ecology, and geographic information systems (GIS).

For a hard copy, contact Susan Grigsby ask for Publication 05-06-027

This work was funded in part by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - Aquatic Resources Unit, Wetland Program Development Grant No. CD-97080901.