The Puget Sound estuary provides one of the most valuable shellfish habitats in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Shellfish are important economically, ecologically, and socially to the Puget Sound basin. The State of Washington manages the safety of shellfish harvest areas by assessing water quality on an ongoing basis and instituting advisories and closures based on water quality thresholds. Managers currently have little information to understand the effect of these closures on harvesting effort or economic values. In order to address this important need, we recently conducted a contingent behavior survey of recreational shellfish harvesters that use Puget Sound beaches. The survey elicited the number of annual trips respondents would expect to take under alternative closure scenarios, including a baseline of no closure. We estimate the demand for recreational trips using a count model system, quantifying the economic value lost to harvesters when beaches are closed due to pollution or biotoxins.

Improved understanding and management of social-ecological systems (SES) requires collaboration between biophysical and social scientists; however, issues related to research philosophy and approaches, the nature of data, and language hinder interdisciplinary science. Here, we discuss how we used conceptual models to promote interdisciplinary dialogue in support of integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs) in the California Current ecosystem. Initial conceptualizations of the California Current IEA were based on the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework. This initial framing was biophysically centered, with humans primarily incorporated as impacts on the system. We wished to move from a conceptualization that portrayed an antagonistic relationship between humans and nature to one that integrated humans and social systems into the IEA framework. We propose a new conceptualization of the California Current that functions across temporal and spatial scales, captures the diverse relationships that typify SESs, and highlights the need for interdisciplinary science. The development of this conceptualization reveals how our understanding of the place and role of people in the ecosystem changed over the course of the history of the California Current IEA. This conceptual model is adaptive and serves to ensure that interdisciplinarity will now be the standard for the California Current IEA and, perhaps, beyond.

Conversion to renewable energy sources is a logical response to the increasing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ocean wave energy is the least developed renewable energy source, despite having the highest energy per unit area. While many hurdles remain in developing wave energy, assessing potential conflicts and evaluating tradeoffs with the existing uses is essential. Marine planning encompasses a broad array of activities that take place in and affect large marine ecosystems, making it an ideal tool for evaluating wave energy resource use conflicts. In this study, we used a spatially explicit, open source decision support tool to evaluate wave energy facility development off the U.S. west coast. We then used this output to identify potential conflicts between wave energy facilities and the existing marine uses in the context of marine planning. We found that regions with the highest wave energy potential were distant from major cities and that infrastructure limitations (cable landing sites) restrict integration with the existing power grids. We also identified multiple potential conflicts, including commercial fishing, shipping and transportation, and marine conservation areas. While wave energy generation facilities may be economically viable, we must also incorporate costs associated with conflicts that arise with the existing marine uses.

Organic matter from autochthonous and allochthonous sources provides energy and nutrients to nearshore food webs including filter-feeding bivalves. In Puget Sound, Washington, USA, the degree to which shellfish rely on these different organic matter subsidies may be important for their management and that of nearshore food webs in general. We explored patterns of terrestrial-marine connectivity in a large, temperate estuary using a combination of oceanographic modeling and isotopic mixing models. We first examined spatial connectivity by modeling freshwater contributions of the major river basins to Puget Sound (potential connectivity), then estimated the relative contribution of terrestrial, nearshore, and marine organic matter sources to nearshore particulate organic matter (POM) (actual connectivity) and to the diets of Pacific oysters Crassostrea gigas (realized connectivity). To estimate actual and realized connectivity, we analyzed the delta C-13 and delta N-15 values of oyster tissue, POM, and primary producers from intertidal, offshore, salt marsh, and upland habitats across the dry (summer) and wet (fall-winter) seasons. Mixing models indicated that both oyster bed POM and oyster diets were composed largely of intertidal macrophytes and salt marsh plants, with less important contributions of phytoplankton, benthic diatoms, and upland vegetation. Our findings suggest that oyster production may be driven more by coastal and marine primary production than by riverine sources, even in a fjord subject to strong freshwater influences.

Puget Sound is an estuarine inland sea fed by 14 major rivers and also strongly influenced by the nearby Fraser River. A comprehensive, particle-based reanalysis of an existing circulation model was used to map the area of influence of each of these rivers over a typical seasonal cycle. Each of the 131,000 particles released in the 15 rivers was associated with a freshwater volume, a nutrient load, and a fecal coliform load based on statistics from 10 years of Washington Department of Ecology monitoring data. Simple assumptions regarding mortality and nutrient utilization/export rates were used to estimate the decrease in bacterial and nutrient load as individual parcels of river water age. Reconstructions of basin-scale volume fluxes and salinities from the particle inventory provide consistency checks on the particle calculation, according to methods suitable for error analysis in a wide range of particle-based estuarine residence time studies. Results suggest that river contributions to total freshwater content in Puget Sound are highly nonlocal in spring and summer, with distant, large rivers (the Fraser and Skagit) accounting for a large fraction of total freshwater. However, bacterial mortality and nutrient export rates are relatively fast compared with transport timescales, and so significant loadings associated with major rivers are in most cases only seen close to river mouths. One notable exception is fecal coliform concentration in Bellingham Bay and Samish Bay, which lie north of Puget Sound proper; there, it appears that the Fraser River may rival local rivers (the Samish and Nooksack) as a pathogen source, with the much higher flow volume of the Fraser compensating for its remoteness.

.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 886 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................................. 886 Methods ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 889 Results ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 892 Discussion: A tall order, two steps at a time .................................................................................................................... 897 References ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 899 Appendix MS6. Finding the accelerator and brake in an individual quota fishery: Linking ecology, economics, and fleet dynamics of US West Coast trawl fisheries (abstract only) ................................................................................. 901 Appendix MS7. Commercial Fishing Economics Technical Report For the Secretarial Determination on Whether to Remove Four Dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon ......................................................... 902 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 907 Existing Fishery Conditions ......................................................................................................................................................... 908

Eelgrass beds provide valuable refuge, foraging, and spawning habitat for many marine species, including valued species such as Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.), Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi), and Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister). We used dynamic simulations in a food web model of central Puget Sound, Washington, USA developed in the Ecopath with Ecosim software, to examine how the marine community may respond to changes in coverage of native eelgrass (Zostera marina), and how these modeled responses can be assessed using an ecosystem services framework, expressing these services with economic currencies in some cases and biological proxies in others. Increased eelgrass coverage was most associated with increases in commercial and recreational fishing with some small decreases in one non-market activity, bird watching. When we considered ecosystem service categories that are aggregations of individual groups of species, we saw little evidence of strong tradeoffs among marine resources; that is, increasing eelgrass coverage was essentially either positive or neutral for all services we examined, although we did not examine terrestrial activities (for example, land use) that affect eelgrass coverage. Within particular service categories, however, we found cases where the responses to changes in eelgrass of individual groups of species that provide the same type of ecosystem service differed both in the magnitude and in the direction of change. This emphasizes the care that should be taken in combining multiple examples of a particular type of ecosystem service into an aggregate measure of that service.

Organic matter transfer across habitats is a ubiquitous feature of ecosystems. Because these transfers are critical determinants of the structure and function of recipient ecosystems, research is needed to understand factors that influence the quantity and quality of these resources. For example, stable isotopes (C, N, S, O, H) are often used as tracers to quantify organic matter flows across habitats and to assess ecosystem connectivity. A major assumption with using stable isotopes in this manner is that within an ecosystem or habitat type, the stable isotope ratios of organic matter and the underlying primary producers that contribute to organic matter pools are relatively static in space and time. However, recent studies have shown that primary producer stable isotope ratios within a particular ecosystem are highly variable both spatially and temporally (Finlay 2001, Cloern et al. 2002, Page et al. 2008, Guest et al. 2010, Moore et al. 2011, Dethier et al. 2013). Advances in statistical models to quantify cross-ecosystem linkages allow for this variation in organic matter sources to be incorporated into mixing models (Moore and Semmens 2008, Parnell et al. 2010); yet, the degree of temporal and spatial variability in organic matter (primary producer) sources remains uncharacterized for many systems. Variation in this “isotopic baseline” is not only important to quantify from a food web perspective, but also can be informative with respect to landscape-level differences in biogeochemical and anthropogenic processes (McClelland and Valiela 1998).

Humans benefit from marine systems in diverse ways. Advances in assessing these “ecosystem services” have raised awareness of our dependence on them and their threatened status. We discuss the importance of modeling ecosystem services to inform decisions, place these efforts in the context of coupled social–ecological systems, and highlight unique aspects of marine systems. We explore a variety of approaches to mapping, modeling, and valuing marine ecosystem services and provide four examples of approaches. Modeling marine ecosystem services helps society recognize the benefits of oceans and coasts, appropriately value marine natural capital, and make better choices about its use.

Many diagnoses of declining marine species and habitats along US coasts point to upland and freshwater sources of imperilment. Yet, little work has examined how and whether activities on land affect marine resources. Similarly, the impacts of climate change on coastal systems are among the most certain; yet, few studies have explored how alternative management and climate scenarios will affect the delivery of diverse benefits to people from coasts. We estimated how Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister) and Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) harvest in Hood Canal, WA, may change given predictions of land uses and effects of climate change. These two marine species are critical components of local commercial and recreational fisheries and thus represent key ecosystem service endpoints. We found that Dungeness crab harvest responds strongly to effects of climate change, as mediated by increased ocean temperature, whereas Pacific oyster harvest is more responsive to projected change in land-use/land-cover due to increased nutrient loading to the marine system. These changes vary spatially throughout Hood Canal. These results can be used as a heuristic framework to help decision-makers, planners, and other stakeholders in the region as they work to target conservation and restoration activities and plan for future growth in a changing climate.

Many hope that ocean waves will be a source for clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy, yet wave energy conversion facilities may affect marine ecosystems through a variety of mechanisms, including competition with other human uses. We developed a decision-support tool to assist siting wave energy facilities, which allows the user to balance the need for profitability of the facilities with the need to minimize conflicts with other ocean uses. Our wave energy model quantifies harvestable wave energy and evaluates the net present value (NPV) of a wave energy facility based on a capital investment analysis. The model has a flexible framework and can be easily applied to wave energy projects at local, regional, and global scales. We applied the model and compatibility analysis on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada to provide information for ongoing marine spatial planning, including potential wave energy projects. In particular, we conducted a spatial overlap analysis with a variety of existing uses and ecological characteristics, and a quantitative compatibility analysis with commercial fisheries data. We found that wave power and harvestable wave energy gradually increase offshore as wave conditions intensify. However, areas with high economic potential for wave energy facilities were closer to cable landing points because of the cost of bringing energy ashore and thus in nearshore areas that support a number of different human uses. We show that the maximum combined economic benefit from wave energy and other uses is likely to be realized if wave energy facilities are sited in areas that maximize wave energy NPV and minimize conflict with existing ocean uses. Our tools will help decision-makers explore alternative locations for wave energy facilities by mapping expected wave energy NPV and helping to identify sites that provide maximal returns yet avoid spatial competition with existing ocean uses.

Marine environments provide a rich bounty of ecosystem services, including fish populations for harvest, beautiful places for recreation, shoreline structure that protects adjacent lands from storms, biogeochemical processes which regulate climate, and connections to human societies that offer cultural and spiritual benefits. In principle, marine ecosystem services are not fundamentally different from their terrestrial counterparts. In practice, however, the valuation and mapping of ecosystem services in marine environments is not as well developed as it is for terrestrial ecosystems. This chapter provides an overview of the services provided by marine environments, and presents a case study of mapping and modelling the flow of ecosystem services in Puget Sound – one of the first comprehensive attempts to understand the linkages between marine ecosystem structure, function, and the benefits delivered to people.

Assessing the utility of lethal vs non-lethal techniques for collecting information on cetaceans is a complex exercise, as a full assessment of this issue requires evaluation of a host of normative factors (e.g., value judgements; tolerances of various types of risks; ethical considerations). On the other hand, some aspects of the assessment are largely scientific and can (in theory at least) be conducted in an objective manner. We briefly outline one possible framework (based on cost-effectiveness analysis) for conducting scientific assessments of the relative merits of lethal vs non-lethal sampling of cetaceans. We do not claim that the proposed framework is definitive, nor that it necessarily includes all important technical considerations. Rather, we suggest that it might be useful as a starting point for discussions about how to move forward with technical evaluation of this key feature of scientific whaling.

The valuation of ecosystem services can play an important role in conservation planning and ecosystem-based management. Unfortunately, gathering primary, site-specific data is costly. As a result, a popular alternate method is to conduct a "benefit transfer" (applying economic value estimates from one location to a similar site in another location). Among the potential pitfalls of such an approach, the correspondence (or lack thereof) between the locations is probably the most important for evaluating the probable validity of the benefit transfer. A common type of benefit transfer in ecosystem service valuation applies an estimate of value per hectare to all areas having the same land-cover or habitat type, and is particularly susceptible to errors resulting from lack of correspondence. Enhancing the use of benefit transfers in this and other ecosystem service applications requires paying closer attention to simple guidelines, developed by economists, for improving validity and accuracy.

Elegant multi-market models and intricate discounting methods are difficult, at times impossible to utilize in the real world because the necessary data just are not available. While there is no perfect substitute for adequate data, there are good ones that are capable of improving policy decisions. This paper describes one such substitute by way of an example: the designation of critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act for West Coast salmon and steelhead. The example shows how a cost-effectiveness approach can mitigate (to some extent) the effects of poor data on the monetary benefits of regulatory actions.