After five rounds of voting, the winner of the Grand Uncertainties Madness tournament bracket is:

What type of protection and restoration actions have the largest and most lasting impact on floodplain function and which types of actions are cost effective?

This research need (from the rivers group) won in a close but decisive victory over a contamination question: What are the cumulative effects of pharmaceuticals, contaminants of emerging concern, and legacy contaminants (PCBs, PAHs, PBDEs, etc.) exposures on species in Puget Sound?

You can view or download the full bracket results (PDF).

From March 28 – April 9, 2025, Puget Sound Institute (PSI) ran an online competition to identify the most important research need for Puget Sound recovery. We filled a tournament bracket with 32 research questions from eight topic areas (beaches, bivalves, rivers, streams, land, water, contamination, and vegetation) and asked YOU to vote for the research questions you think matter most for Puget Sound.

All of the research questions in Grand Uncertainties Madness are either from PSI’s Grand Uncertainties Matrix (GUM) or are candidates to be added to the GUM. The GUM is a database of knowledge gaps (“uncertainties”) which pose barriers to ecosystem management in Puget Sound.

How does Grand Uncertainties Madness relate to PSI’s work?

While there were some blowout victories in the tournament, other matches were very, very close – it can be challenging to prioritize among research questions! The Grand Uncertainties Madness results are just for fun, but in reality PSI works with experts and practitioners to identify and prioritize research needs that are barriers to management in Puget Sound ecosystem recovery. In this work we don’t use a bracket to compare research needs one-on-one, but we do ask experts and practitioners to review multiple research needs and vote on which are most important. Typically we do this within a given topic (e.g., beaches), rather than across topics like in Grand Uncertainties Madness!

Once experts and practitioners prioritize research needs, PSI puts these uncertainties in the Grand Uncertainties Matrix (GUM) and communicates top priorities to inform regional research and funding decisions. This work supports the Puget Sound National Estuary Program. By focusing regional research activity on the most important questions, knowledge gaps can be filled which can help the recovery community adaptively manage the Puget Sound ecosystem. In the GUM, PSI also tracks ongoing research progress as scientists learn more about these uncertainties over time. If you would like to learn more about PSI’s work to curate prioritized uncertainties for the region, please visit our research agenda webpage.

Thank you!

We are grateful to everyone who voted in Grand Uncertainties Madness! Please contact us if you have any questions.

*Disclaimers: The results of Grand Uncertainties Madness will not ultimately influence our research or funding decisions within or outside the Puget Sound National Estuary Program. This activity is (obviously) not connected to the NCAA college basketball tournaments – it is just meant to be a bit of fun.