What about the farms? A look at resilience planning for agriculture in Snohomish County
Presentation Abstract
The Sustainable Lands Strategy is a farm-fish-flood planning effort in Snohomish County whose members include local tribes, government and farmers that began seven years ago. In recent years, this group started to realize work on the “farm” aspect of this planning triad was a little light, and recognized this gap was hindering progress toward our multi-benefit approach to floodplain management. Trying to minimize the impacts of fish projects on the farming community was not enough; we needed to create an agriculture strategy, akin to the Salmon Recovery Plan, that would identify agricultural projects needed to ensure resilience into the future. The Snohomish Conservation District, along with a steering committee of engaged local farmers, is leading the effort to create this Agriculture Resilience Plan with support of the Sustainable Lands Strategy members. The plan aims to do several things: provide tools farmers can use to predict the risk associated with changes in climate and hydrology, prioritize and protect high value farmland from development, provide research and guidance to farmers on practices that improve resilience on their own farms, and scope and design landscape-scale projects to ensure resilience of high priority farmland into the future. We will present results of the flood risk modeling work completed by the UW Climate Impacts Group, progress on estuary groundwater level modeling by USGS, completion of a WSU online tool showing climate impacts to crops, and outreach tips and lessons learned. Not only will this plan fill a missing gap in development of multi-benefit approaches for the Snohomish and Stillaguamish Rivers, the climate modeling work for flooding and groundwater will help inform salmon recovery and flood hazard planning.
Session Title
Integrated Coastal Climate Change Modeling for Salish Sea Planning: Part II
Conference Track
SSE5: Climate Change: Impacts, Adaptation, and Research
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2018 : Seattle, Wash.)
Document Type
Event
SSEC Identifier
SSE5-473
Start Date
6-4-2018 2:15 PM
End Date
6-4-2018 2:30 PM
Type of Presentation
Oral
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)
Farms--Washingron (State)--Snohomish County; Agricultural ecology--Washington (State)--Snohomish County; Agricultural pollution--Washingron (State)--Snohomish County; Agricultural wastes-Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Snohomish County; Environmental responsibility--Washington (State)--Snohomish County
Geographic Coverage
Snohomish 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
What about the farms? A look at resilience planning for agriculture in Snohomish County
The Sustainable Lands Strategy is a farm-fish-flood planning effort in Snohomish County whose members include local tribes, government and farmers that began seven years ago. In recent years, this group started to realize work on the “farm” aspect of this planning triad was a little light, and recognized this gap was hindering progress toward our multi-benefit approach to floodplain management. Trying to minimize the impacts of fish projects on the farming community was not enough; we needed to create an agriculture strategy, akin to the Salmon Recovery Plan, that would identify agricultural projects needed to ensure resilience into the future. The Snohomish Conservation District, along with a steering committee of engaged local farmers, is leading the effort to create this Agriculture Resilience Plan with support of the Sustainable Lands Strategy members. The plan aims to do several things: provide tools farmers can use to predict the risk associated with changes in climate and hydrology, prioritize and protect high value farmland from development, provide research and guidance to farmers on practices that improve resilience on their own farms, and scope and design landscape-scale projects to ensure resilience of high priority farmland into the future. We will present results of the flood risk modeling work completed by the UW Climate Impacts Group, progress on estuary groundwater level modeling by USGS, completion of a WSU online tool showing climate impacts to crops, and outreach tips and lessons learned. Not only will this plan fill a missing gap in development of multi-benefit approaches for the Snohomish and Stillaguamish Rivers, the climate modeling work for flooding and groundwater will help inform salmon recovery and flood hazard planning.
