Restoration of ecosystem processes in Puget Sound nearshore habitats: what we have lost, where we are going, and how we are…

The Puget Sound nearshore is a complex, dynamic ecosystem that has changed dramatically in the last 150 years and faces a myriad of ongoing anthropogenic influences. Conducting restoration in nearshore habitats is a vital component of Puget Sound ecosystem recovery, yet this cannot be done effectively without applying adaptive and strategic knowledge at both local and regional scales. Nearshore habitats are dynamically influenced by both riverine and marine abiotic and biotic forces such that it can be challenging to disentangle the individual and cumulative effects of restoration projects across environmental gradients acting at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Despite the challenges in accomplishing such efforts, integrating data collection and analysis across local and landscape-level scales is an important aspect of both understanding the relationship between individual restoration efforts and their surrounding ecosystems and in planning and implementing new restoration projects. The Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program (ESRP) seeks to strategically restore and protect nearshore processes in Puget Sound through understanding both the historic and current condition of the landscape and through supporting research to inform restoration.