ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Ecosystem Ecology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1549344
This article is part of the Research TopicTurning with the Tide and Time in the Salish Sea: Change in Estuary and Nearshore Habitats and Species Dependent on ThemView all 12 articles
Estimating estuary habitat change and functional trajectory of restoration projects over two decades in Puget Sound, WA
Provisionally accepted
- 1National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA), Northwest Region, Seattle, United States
- 2Washington State Department of Ecology, Olympia, Washington, United States
- 3Skagit River System Cooperative, La Conner, United States
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Estuaries provide many important functions for numerous aquatic species across life stages. However, these habitats have been widely impacted due to their characteristics and features that support agriculture and industrialization. Within Puget Sound, estuary restoration has been a primary tool to support recovery of Chinook salmon which are known to rely heavily on estuaries during early life history. Tracking habitat gains via restoration and evaluating effectiveness of these actions is necessary to ensure recovery targets are met. We used aerial imagery from two distinct time periods to measure estuarine habitat and estimate rates of change over two decades in Puget Sound. In addition, we developed a method to estimate restoration project functionality based on allometry of planform geometry features for tidal deltas. A total of 72 restoration actions across nine tidal deltas added ~147 ha and ~410 km of tidal channel habitat in Puget Sound between 1997 and 2018. While positive overall, time series of rearing habitat change for individual tidal deltas varied reflecting the frequency and magnitude of restoration actions as well as the response of individual actions to natural processes. Estimated functional footprints for restoration projects were below total footprints for all deltas. Functional footprints appeared to track total footprint well for some deltas but indicated potential limitations in others that may be related to particular planform geometry metrics for individual sites. Overall restoration of estuarine habitats in Puget Sound since 1997 have added substantial rearing habitat in support of recovery for Chinook salmon populations. While total gains are positive, our estimates of functionality provide additional information that may support adaptive management to ensure efforts remain beneficial to target species. Continuing to accurately track changes to estuarine habitat and improving estimates for functionality should benefit recovery efforts and support management decisions in the future.
Keywords: estuary, restoration, Habitat function, functional trajectory, Juvenile salmon
Received: 20 Dec 2024; Accepted: 30 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chamberlin, Stefankiv, Beamer, Greene, Hood and Munsch. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Joshua Chamberlin, National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA), Northwest Region, Seattle, United States
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