Presentation Abstract
Puget Sound’s major rivers and their floodplains deliver a wealth of economic, social and environmental benefits. They support diverse and productive agriculture, sustain important fisheries, enable recreation and provide other functions essential to quality of life in the region. However, development and other activities in Puget Sound have degraded more than 70% of floodplains threatening salmon populations, impacting water quality, and limiting the extent to which these areas can regulate flood waters and support other natural river functions. The variety of problems caused by the loss and degradation of floodplains has triggered responses from an array of stakeholders and interests, resulting in uncoordinated and often conflicting efforts to manage these critical areas. To address this challenge the Nature Conservancy launched Floodplains by Design, a collaborative effort to improve decision-making by providing information to align isolated objectives and integrate disconnected stakeholders. A key component of this strategy is the development of a decision support tool designed to provide data and data visualizations that can support floodplain management funding, prioritization and implementation decisions at both local and regional scales. The Floodplain Resilience tool is currently under development both at a regional scale with state and federal agency partners and at a watershed scale in Snohomish County. In this presentation, we will describe the design and content of the Floodplain Resilience tool and discuss the intended audiences and relevant decision-making applciations.
Session Title
Session S-04E: Managing Floodplains for Multiple Benefits
Conference Track
Habitat
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2014 : Seattle, Wash.)
Document Type
Event
Start Date
1-5-2014 8:30 AM
End Date
1-5-2014 10:00 AM
Location
Room 613-614
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)
Floodplain management--Washington (State)--Puget Sound; Floodplain ecology--Washington (State)--Puget Sound; Restoration ecology--Washington (State)--Puget Sound
Geographic Coverage
Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Puget Sound (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
Included in
Floodplain Resilience: A tool to support multi-objective decision-making in floodplains.
Room 613-614
Puget Sound’s major rivers and their floodplains deliver a wealth of economic, social and environmental benefits. They support diverse and productive agriculture, sustain important fisheries, enable recreation and provide other functions essential to quality of life in the region. However, development and other activities in Puget Sound have degraded more than 70% of floodplains threatening salmon populations, impacting water quality, and limiting the extent to which these areas can regulate flood waters and support other natural river functions. The variety of problems caused by the loss and degradation of floodplains has triggered responses from an array of stakeholders and interests, resulting in uncoordinated and often conflicting efforts to manage these critical areas. To address this challenge the Nature Conservancy launched Floodplains by Design, a collaborative effort to improve decision-making by providing information to align isolated objectives and integrate disconnected stakeholders. A key component of this strategy is the development of a decision support tool designed to provide data and data visualizations that can support floodplain management funding, prioritization and implementation decisions at both local and regional scales. The Floodplain Resilience tool is currently under development both at a regional scale with state and federal agency partners and at a watershed scale in Snohomish County. In this presentation, we will describe the design and content of the Floodplain Resilience tool and discuss the intended audiences and relevant decision-making applciations.
