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Floodplains

Back to all Priority Focus Areas.

Basics

Floodplains

Priorities for 2018-2022 focus on accelerating progress toward the Floodplains Vital Sign.

Floodplains are important areas in the Puget Sound region because they support fishable, swimmable, drinkable waterways. It is the intent of this strategy to restore and protect floodplain functions. The priorities and appoaches attempt to guide floodplain work at a regional level while providing flexibility for local implementation. In this stepwise structure, the strategy to support floodplain protection and restoration is to create the enabling conditions necessary for strategic work, then designing solutions and strategies on a project level, and finally implementing those solutions. This structure allows communities to discuss the balance between social, ecological, and economic services provided by floodplains and to develop agreed upon, strategic and collaborative solutions. 

The Floodplains Implementation Strategy prioritizes 17 rivers that have the potential to contribute the most to the Floodplains Vital Sign indicator target. These 17 floodplains are the: Big Quilcene, Cedar River, Deschutes River, Dosewallips River, Duckabush River, Dungeness River, Elwha River, Green/Duwamish River, Hamma Hamma River, Nisqually River, Nooksack River, Puyallup River, Samish River, Skagit River, Skokomish River, Snohomish River, and Stillaguamish River. Projects proposed within one of these 17 floodplains are a priority because they can contribute the most to the regional Floodplains Vital Sign indicator target. 

In order to protect and restore floodplain area and function, the Regional Priorities first emphasize that the technical resources and human capacity need to be in place to enable recovery planning. The Regional Priorities then promote the design of multi-benefit recovery plans. These plans should strive to balance the need for habitat, agriculture, development, and flood risk prevention. The plan should identify the best sites for floodplain restoration or protection while ensuring that all stakeholder needs are considered. To enable successful implementation of the plans, the Regional Priorities provide an opportunity to address the policy and regulatory limitations that may inhibit funding or delay needed recovery actions. Finally, once the plan is developed, the Regional Priorities promote implementing the site-specific actions that are supported by the multi-benefit plan. Other actions include sharing and communicating with partners about the plan and monitoring project outcomes to adaptively manage floodplain protection and restoration planning.

Priority Focus Area Near Term Actions Map

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Some Near Term Actions operate over larger areas and are not represented on the map, but are listed in the Near Term Action grid below. A full-screen, filterable version of this map is also available.

Regional Priorities

FP1: Enable greater local planning capacity to address restoration and protection
FP2: Design and identify multiple-benefit solutions and strategies
FP3: Implement multiple-benefit projects developed through reach-scale planning processes

Regional Priority Approaches

FP1.1: Gain a better understanding of current floodplain habitat conditions.
FP1.2: Gain understanding of the social, economic & political factors affecting floodplain habitat
FP1.3: Gain better understanding of how floodplain habitat may change due to pressures like climate change
FP1.4: Gain understanding of future social, economic, & political factors affecting floodplain habitat
FP1.5: Increase staff capacity for planning, implementation, and enforcement related to floodplains
FP2.1: Collaborative, multi-benefit groups develop prioritized restoration/protection plans for floodplains
FP2.2: Address barriers to improve floodplain implementation plans, policies, and regulations
FP3.1: Develop and implement outreach, education, and/or incentive programs related to floodplain habitat
FP3.2: Implement plans and priorities to protect floodplain habitat
FP3.3: Implement plans and priorities to restore floodplain habitat
FP3.4: Collect and analyze data to adaptively manage floodplain recovery practices

Near Term Actions

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This site is managed and maintained by the Puget Sound Partnership.

For questions about the Action Agenda, contact Don Gourlie at don.gourlie@psp.wa.gov. For questions about the Action Agenda Tracker online tool, contact Wessyl Kelly at wessyl.kelly@psp.wa.gov.

ProjectFirma is a service provided by Sitka Technology Group, which builds on the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's EIP Project Tracker. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. Source code is available on GitHub.

Copyright (C) 2020 Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and Sitka Technology Group | Version 1.2.131.0 | Compiled 2021-02-11 18:08:03 | PID 6560