Puget Sound Scoping Study

The Puget Sound offers important opportunities to examine the dynamics and feedbacks between atmospheric processes, hydrological extremes, water management, and their interactions with coastal, energy and land systems. Photo by Weston Norwood on Unsplash

A one-year scoping and pilot study on Puget Sound, led by PNNL, aims to lay the foundation for pivotal research of complex coastal systems interactions. The study will investigate the broader context of understanding and modeling coastal systems and their vulnerability to climate change and other stresses.

Puget Sound is among highly vulnerable coastal regions affected by global warming with complex terrain ranging from mountains to coastal plains and diverse land cover from densely forested uplands to urbanized lowlands. Located in the northwest corner of Washington state, Puget Sound is characterized by complex terrain and strong urban to rural gradients in the maritime climate.  With a diverse and evolving population, growing infrastructure and important ecological resources, it offers the opportunity to explore significantly contrasting geographic and hydroclimatic characteristics and human-Earth interactions, adding important perspectives to our understanding of the evolution and behavior of coastal regions in the United States.

This study is supported by all three program areas within BER’s Earth and Environmental Systems Modeling program—Earth System Model Development (ESMD), Regional and Global Modeling Analysis (RGMA), and MultiSector Dynamics (MSD)—bringing together modeling capabilities in understanding and simulating coastal systems and their vulnerability to climate change as well as other stresses to and from natural and human systems and their interactions.

The scoping part of the study includes an investigation of capabilities, research gaps, and key players in the regional science community with respect to the scientific context and overarching science questions important to DOE. These goals will be addressed through a systematic literature review and a workshop, and the latter is planned for March 2022. The outcome of the scoping study will be a report summarizing key findings and discussions of the workshop, and key research needs for addressing a broader range of natural and natural-human system interactions in topographically complex coastal environments that include strong urban-to-rural gradients such as those in Puget Sound.

The pilot component of the study includes modeling experiments and data analysis of the coupled natural-human system. This study component will explore how the complex, changing terrain and coastal environment of Puget Sound interact with the large-scale environment and contribute to local-to-regional hydrologic extremes and stresses. Investigators will also assess current modeling capabilities and datasets for characterizing the hydroclimate and hydrological extremes in the Puget Sound basin. The outcome of the pilot study will be publications based on these assessment activities.

Funding

• BER’s Earth and Environmental Systems Modeling program—Earth System Model Development (ESMD), Regional and Global Modeling Analysis (RGMA), and MultiSector Dynamics (MSD)

Contacts

• Ning Sun, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory