Tag: Summer stream flows

Findings and reports: February 2023

Image of San Juan Islands from the Salish Sea Model
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Salish Sea Model provides insights on circulation and residence times The amount of time water circulates and “resides” in Puget Sound is of intense interest to regulators and emergency response officials who want to understand how quickly wastewater is flushed out of Puget Sound and into the ocean. A paper in the journal Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science reports that contrary to expectation, flushing of deeper waters may take longer in wintertime in large fjord-like basins such as Hood Canal. A new, higher resolution version of the Salish Sea Model […]

Are summer low flows increasing in Puget Sound streams?

Issaquah Creek. Photo courtesy of Nicholas Georgiadis.
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Update: A pdf of slides from the presentation is now available. Adequate stream flows are critical to Puget Sound’s endangered salmon and are one of the state’s ‘Vital Sign’ indicators of ecosystem health. Earlier data suggests that summer stream flows have been on the decline, but new analysis shows that gauging these flows may be more complicated than previously thought. On Monday, March 15th, Puget Sound Institute senior research scientist Nick Georgiadis will discuss statistical models that show an apparent increase in summer stream flows over the past 20 years […]

Are low flows changing in Puget Sound streams?

Issaquah Creek. Photo courtesy of Nicholas Georgiadis.
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A 2018 report from Nicholas Georgiadis at the University of Washington Puget Sound Institute analyzes the effect of rainfall and human-caused factors on regional summer stream flows. The report is available on the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound.