Sound indicators: a review for the Puget Sound Partnership

By the end of 2010, the PSP Science Panel’s efforts had reached the stage where an independent review by the WSAS (Washington State Academy of Sciences) was timely and useful to help guide its future indicator development efforts.

Sound indicators report cover page
Sound indicators report cover page

Executive Summary

The enabling legislation (Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5372) that created the Puget Sound Partnership (PSP) directed the PSP to develop an Action Agenda that is a “comprehensive schedule of projects, programs, and other activities designed to achieve a healthy Puget Sound ecosystem.” The Action Agenda was to “include near-term and long-term benchmarks designed to ensure continuous progress needed to reach the goals, objectives, and designated outcomes by 2020.” The Science Panel of the PSP was charged by PSP’s Leadership Council with identifying an appropriate set of environmental indicators that would help efforts to accomplish the goal of restoring and maintaining a vibrant and productive Puget Sound ecosystem.

The enabling legislation that created the Washington State Academy of Sciences (Engrossed Senate Bill 5381) directed the WSAS to conduct ongoing independent reviews and assessments of the Puget Sound Partnership’s progress in developing the scientific basis for achieving a vibrant Puget Sound. By the end of 2010, the PSP Science Panel’s efforts had reached the stage where an independent review by the WSAS was timely and useful to help guide its future indicator development efforts. The PSP Science Panel asked the WSAS to evaluate the processes it used to develop a system of indicators of ecosystem condition, and human health and well-being. The WSAS was also asked to assess how well the individual indicators and the full set of indicators could function as the basis for guiding the PSP’s future management efforts and for monitoring progress in improving the ecological condition of Puget Sound. This report is the response of the Committee convened by the WSAS to meet that request. The Committee’s analysis is based on documents supplied to it by PSP on or before September 30, 2011.

Specifically, the WSAS was asked to evaluate whether the Puget Sound Partnership’s current choice of indicators of ecosystem status, and of human health and well-being, meet the objectives defined by the Leadership Council, to evaluate the process by which individual indicators and the set of indicators were selected, and to recommend how the PSP might most effectively continue the process of refining and selecting indicators.

Indicators need to detect and report on changes at appropriate spatial and temporal scales without being overwhelmed by natural environmental variability. They need to yield reliable and useful numbers in the face of inevitable external perturbations. They should be able to accommodate technological changes so that meaningful status and trends can be identified even though measurement technologies change. The value of indicators increases with the time span over which they are maintained because it is difficult to detect and interpret trends in components of the environment and to know whether variations fall outside the “normal” range without long-term data.

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About the Author: 
Members of the commitee: Gordon Orians, Chair, University of Washington, Megan Dethier, University of Washington, Charles Hirschman, University of Washington, Alan Kohn, University of Washington, Duncan Patten, Montana State University, and Terry Young, Environmental Science Consultant.