2016 Puget Sound Marine Waters Overview

The Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program has released its sixth annual Marine Waters Overview. The report provides an assessment of marine conditions for the year 2016 and includes updates on water quality as well as status reports for select plankton, seabirds and fish.

Puget Sound marine Waters 2016 report cover
Puget Sound marine Waters 2016 report cover

Overview

This report provides a collective view, from comprehensive monitoring and observing programs, of marine water quality and conditions and associated biota in Puget Sound in 2016. While the report focuses on the marine waters of greater Puget Sound, additional selected conditions are also included due to their influence on Puget Sound waters. These include large-scale climate indices and conditions along the Washington coast. It is important to document and understand regional drivers of variability and patterns on various timescales so that water quality data may be interpreted with these variations in mind, to better distinguish human effects from natural variations and change. This is the sixth annual report produced for the PSEMP Marine Waters Workgroup. What follows is our message to decisionmakers, policymakers, managers, scientists, and the public who are interested in the health of Puget Sound.

 

Download the full report (external link).

About the Author: 
The Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program (PSEMP) is a collaboration of monitoring professionals, researchers, and data users from federal, tribal, state, and local government agencies, universities, non-governmental organizations, watershed groups, businesses, and private and volunteer groups. The objective of PSEMP is to create and support a collaborative, inclusive, and transparent approach to regional monitoring and assessment that builds upon and facilitates communication among the many monitoring programs and efforts operating in Puget Sound. PSEMP’s fundamental goal is to assess progress towards the recovery of the health of Puget Sound. The Marine Waters Workgroup is one of several technical workgroups operating under the PSEMP umbrella – with a specific focus on the inland marine waters of Puget Sound and the greater Salish Sea, including the oceanic, atmospheric, and terrestrial influences and drivers affecting the Sound. For more information about PSEMP and the Marine Waters Workgroup, please visit: https://sites.google. com/a/psemp.org/psemp/.

About this article

Article Type:
Reports
Author:
Produced by NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center for the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program’s Marine Waters Workgroup
External Publication Source:
Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program
Originally Published:
December 2017
Posted in EoPS:
12/12/2017
Tags:
Algae, Marine habitat, Water quality, Marine Waters Overview, Birds, Fishes, Selected publications, Forage fish, Monitoring