Salmon Habitat Information and Reports Green/Duwamish and Central Puget Sound Watershed Water Resource Inventory Area (WRIA) 9

What is a Watershed?   Watersheds are also called Water Resource Inventory Areas (WRIAs). The Green/Duwamish and Central Puget Sound Watershed is also known as Water Resource Inventory Area 9 (WRIA 9).

A watershed is a basin-shaped area that drains to a central point where it enters a river, lake or ocean. It can include groundwater, surface water, and salt water such as Puget Sound. Watersheds can encompass small areas draining to a stream or be much larger, such as the Green/Duwamish watershed, which contains many streams and basins but still drains to one point. Click here for a map of watersheds in King County, including the Green/Duwamish and Central Puget Sound Watershed.

What is Healthy Habitat for Salmon?

Healthy habitat for salmon in freshwater streams, rivers, and lakes includes:

• Clean, cold, well-oxygenated water
• Access up- and down-stream
  
• Streamside (“riparian”) habitats that provide food and shade
  
• Gravel beds free of silt
  
• Enough water (“flow”)
  

Young salmon also depend on the Puget Sound nearshore, where they rear after leaving freshwater streams. Healthy nearshore habitat includes:

• Eel grass beds, kelp forests, and shallow water habitat where they can feed and hide from predators
• Beaches with overhanging vegetation to provide insects and shade for the eggs of fish that young salmon prey on

"Ancients of the Green" Poster

A good introduction to some of the salmon and trout of the watershed is available on the 2003 updated version of the popular "Ancients of the Green" poster. The poster has two sides:

• Front of poster showing the salmon of our watershed against a background of the wild Middle Green River (Adobe Acrobat 2.7 MB)
• Back of poster describing use of the watershed by Chinook, chum, coho, and steelhead (Adobe Acrobat 1.1 MB)

To get your free copy of this poster, fill out an information request form. Be sure to include your mailing address. You may also contact Dennis Clark, 206-296-1909.

"Making Our Watershed Fit for a King " Poster

This poster summarizes the salmon habitat problems and solutions in the Green/Duwamish and Central Puget Sound Watershed. It lists the major actions recommended in the 2005 Salmon Habitat Plan.

Download the poster (Adobe Acrobat 13.1 MB).

This poster is available free of charge for use in public locations such as school classrooms, churches, community centers, kiosks, and other high visibility locations. To request a poster for public display, contact Dennis Clark, 206-296-1909.

Salmon Habitat Plan for the Green/Duwamish and Central Puget Sound Watershed: Making Our Watershed Fit for a King

Completed in 2005, the Salmon Habitat Plan recommends projects, programs, and policies to protect and restore salmon habitat in southern King County. The Plan also summarizes the scientific understanding of the problems facing salmon in the watershed. The Plan will guide salmon habitat recovery efforts for the next 10 years by the local governments of the watershed and other partners. The Habitat Plan is part of the overall Shared Strategy for Puget Sound salmon recovery.

Technical Reports and Web Tools on Salmon Habitat in the Watershed

WRIA 9 Strategic Assessment

The Strategic Assessment is a series of reports that answered key scientific questions. It was shaped by analysis in the Habitat Limiting Factors and Reconnaissance Assessment Report (see below) that revealed important unanswered scientific questions. The information gained from the Strategic Assessment was used in the development of the Habitat Plan. The Strategic Assessment was carried out during 2002-2005.

WRIA 9 Habitat Limiting Factors and Reconnaissance Assessment Report

This report identifies habitat factors contributing to the decline of salmon in the Green/Duwamish and Central Puget Sound Watershed. It summarizes what was known as of 2000 about current and past salmonid populations and habitat. It identified data gaps to help guide future research and scientific assessment. This report also includes fish distribution maps showing where salmon are found.

Maps Showing Known Distribution of Salmon and Trout

These maps show the known distribution of Chinook, chum, coho, pink, and sockeye salmon and steelhead and cutthroat trout in the Green/Duwamish and Central Puget Sound Watershed. These maps were based on information in published and unpublished databases and the collective knowledge of local scientists and resource managers as of the late 1990s.

More recent data on fish presence in streams in the Nearshore Subwatershed is available for:

• Vashon/Maury Island (using data from June 2001)
• Nearshore Mainland from West Seattle to Federal Way including Salmon, Miller/Walker, Des Moines, McSorley, Joe's Creek and others (using data from June 2003)

SalmonScape Web Tool

SalmonScape is an interactive, computer mapping system tool created by the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. It merges fish and habitat data collected by state, federal, tribal and local biologists and presents those data in an integrated system that can be readily accessed. SalmonScape features multi-layered maps containing information on fish stock distribution and status, juvenile fish monitoring, habitat characteristics, and stream blockages that impede fish passage.

iMap Web Tool

The powerful iMap mapping tool shows habitat projects in the Green/Duwamish and Central Puget Sound Watershed (WRIA 9). This tool allows Web users to create their own maps showing water features, critical areas, habitat projects, and other natural and human-defined features affecting salmon.

State of the Nearshore Ecosystem Report

This report summarizes of the state of knowledge of ecological processes and conditions, natural resources, and ecosystem health in the nearshore portions of Water Resource Inventory Areas (WRIAs) 8 and 9. It complements the largely freshwater information compiled in the WRIA 9 Habitat Limiting Factors and Reconnaissance Assessment Report. Published in July 2001.

Seattle Urban Blueprint

The Urban Blueprint analyzes what Chinook salmon do as they move through Seattle and helps identify the actions needed to protect them. A large portion of the report focuses on salmon habitat in the Duwamish and in the Puget Sound nearshore portions of our watershed. Published in June 2001.

Take Action to Help Salmon in Your Watershed!

Learn about actions you can take at home or how to get involved in taking care of salmon habitat in our watershed.