Point No Point Treaty Council’s Riparian Vegetation Assessment Project
Presentation Abstract
Riparian corridors along marine shorelines, rivers, and floodplains provide important ecological functions for salmonid species and other wildlife, including shade, large woody debris, and dispersal of food to adjacent water bodies. The protection and restoration of riverine floodplain habitat is fundamental to the recovery of federally listed salmonid populations in the Puget Sound region. A major challenge of the State’s Shoreline Management Act and Growth Management Act is to manage development impacts and protect ecological functions in riparian corridors along the marine shoreline. The characteristics of riparian corridors are often a highly contentious topic for local governments and the public. This situation is exacerbated because we currently lack comprehensive spatial data at relevant scales to describe the characteristics of riparian vegetation in most areas. Comprehensive riparian vegetation data, as developed in the PNPTC’s riparian assessment project, is valuable in helping to describe ecological conditions along marine shorelines, floodplains and major river corridors. Its analysis in association with other ecologically relevant data fills a critical information gap, addresses unfounded assumptions, and helps focus on the real issues to be resolved in making land use decisions. These data were presented through maps and data summaries that facilitated a common understanding of riparian conditions and benefitted the land use regulatory planning processes. The PNPTC evaluated current NAIP imagery (2009) and field tested data in four counties. The final riparian land cover datasets for each county covered a band of 300 feet along the marine shoreline and freshwater stream Shorelines of the State. This data is currently being utilized in three SMP updates (Kitsap, Clallam and Mason counties). The PNPTC would like to present this data and its applications to the region in order to demonstrate integrated landscape scale assessment data used in local planning.
Session Title
Session S-10D: Cross-Habitat Linkages and Landscape Scale Approaches to Ecosystem Management
Conference Track
Species and Food Webs
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2014 : Seattle, Wash.)
Document Type
Event
Start Date
1-5-2014 5:00 PM
End Date
1-5-2014 6:30 PM
Location
Room 6C
Genre/Form
conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events)
Contributing Repository
Digital content made available by University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Subjects – Topical (LCSH)
Riparian ecology--Research--Washington (State)--Kitsap County; Riparian ecology--Research--Washington (State)--Clallam County; Riparian ecology--Research--Washington (State)--Mason County
Subjects – Names (LCNAF)
Point No Point Treaty Council
Geographic Coverage
Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Kitsap County (Wash.); Clallam County (Wash.); Mason County (Wash.)
Rights
This resource is displayed for educational purposes only and may be subject to U.S. and international copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies of this resource, please contact University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103, USA (360-650-7534; heritage.resources@wwu.edu) and refer to the collection name and identifier. Any materials cited must be attributed to the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Records, University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Type
Text
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
Point No Point Treaty Council’s Riparian Vegetation Assessment Project
Room 6C
Riparian corridors along marine shorelines, rivers, and floodplains provide important ecological functions for salmonid species and other wildlife, including shade, large woody debris, and dispersal of food to adjacent water bodies. The protection and restoration of riverine floodplain habitat is fundamental to the recovery of federally listed salmonid populations in the Puget Sound region. A major challenge of the State’s Shoreline Management Act and Growth Management Act is to manage development impacts and protect ecological functions in riparian corridors along the marine shoreline. The characteristics of riparian corridors are often a highly contentious topic for local governments and the public. This situation is exacerbated because we currently lack comprehensive spatial data at relevant scales to describe the characteristics of riparian vegetation in most areas. Comprehensive riparian vegetation data, as developed in the PNPTC’s riparian assessment project, is valuable in helping to describe ecological conditions along marine shorelines, floodplains and major river corridors. Its analysis in association with other ecologically relevant data fills a critical information gap, addresses unfounded assumptions, and helps focus on the real issues to be resolved in making land use decisions. These data were presented through maps and data summaries that facilitated a common understanding of riparian conditions and benefitted the land use regulatory planning processes. The PNPTC evaluated current NAIP imagery (2009) and field tested data in four counties. The final riparian land cover datasets for each county covered a band of 300 feet along the marine shoreline and freshwater stream Shorelines of the State. This data is currently being utilized in three SMP updates (Kitsap, Clallam and Mason counties). The PNPTC would like to present this data and its applications to the region in order to demonstrate integrated landscape scale assessment data used in local planning.
