Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Washington
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

A number of habitat restoration sites in the lower Duwamish Waterway in Seattle, Washington have been extensively studied under previous Research Work Orders (RWOs) (Cordell et al., 1994, 1995, 2001, 2003), to determine how they function with respect to use by juvenile salmonids and production of invertebrates that provide the salmon with food. In 2008, the University of Washington Wetland Ecosystems Team (UW-WET) established a RWO with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to investigate ten additional habitat restoration sites in order to evaluate their biological function and to enable an initial comparison of them to other better studied sites in the system. Work on these sites included biological sampling in cases where it had not been previously done, synthesis of pre-existing data reports, and an evaluation of each site with regard to the stated restoration goals (Armbrust et al. 2008). Additional such surveys were conducted for the USACE in 2009, at five sites (Armbrust et al. 2009). The goal of this project is to conduct similar literature surveys, site visits, and sampling at four additional restoration sites, which will include collection of new biological data where appropriate, and evaluation of each project with respect to original project goals. This data will be valuable in providing information about the restoration sites that can be used to compare to previously evaluated sites, and allowing for a standardized evaluation of the present status and biological function of each site.