October 2024 | New Report Available

2023 Marine Waters Overview Report

This report, a product of the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program’s Marine Waters Work Group, is the thirteenth annual report on marine water conditions in Puget Sound. Since 2011, Puget Sound Marine Waters has compiled data from numerous environmental monitoring programs to report on the state of Puget Sound’s marine waters during the previous year. 

The report combines a wealth of data from comprehensive monitoring programs and provides a concise summary of what was happening in Puget Sound’s marine waters during 2023. It covers areas such as climate and weather, river inputs, seawater temperature, salinity, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, ocean acidification, phytoplankton, biotoxins, bacteria and pathogens, shellfish resources, and more.

Please take a few moments to read the findings and share this information with others you think may be interested. 

Sent by Katrina Radach on behalf of the editor team: Jude Apple, Rachel Wold, Kimberle Stark, Julia Bos, Sylvia Yang, Jamey Selleck, Nicole Burnett, Alex Marquez, Lincoln Loehr, Jeff Rice, Sylvia Kantor, Christopher Krembs, and Jan Newton (Editors).

Key Messages & Major Findings

Key Messages 

• The Puget Sound region is home to more than 4.2 million people. These people visit the Sound’s beaches, eat the local seafood, and enjoy the diversity of life in and around these waters. The Sound is a social, cultural, and economic lifeline for Western Washington, where the health of human communities and the health of the Sound are inextricably linked.  
• Each year, the Marine Waters Work Group releases the annual Puget Sound Marine Waters Overview report. This report is a collaborative effort that combines a wealth of data from numerous comprehensive environmental monitoring programs. Since 2011, we have been reporting on the physical, chemical and biological conditions of Puget Sound, including many conditions related to human health and pollution. The 2023 report represents the collective effort of 67 contributors from federal, tribal, state, and local agencies, academia, nonprofits, and private and volunteer groups.
• This edition of the 2023 Puget Sound Marine Waters Overview report once again directly informs the Puget Sound Vital Signs. The majority of technical summaries (32 out of 38) collectively inform many of the Vital Signs nested under the Puget Sound Partnership’s ecosystem recovery goals (Thriving Species and Food Webs, Functioning Habitat, Healthy Water Quality, Healthy Human Populations, and Vibrant Human Quality of Life). In this manner, the annual report makes a valuable contribution to our shared understanding of ecosystem conditions as they relate to Puget Sound recovery efforts.
• The Puget Sound Marine Waters Work Group of the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program will continue to provide valuable insight on the status of Puget Sound. We provide these facts to help people understand and make informed decisions to protect and restore Puget Sound.

Major Findings

• In summary, 2023 was a bit of a variable year. The year started with air temperatures cooler than average, then developed to much warmer than average and then remained warmer. Water temperatures largely mimicked this pattern of cool anomalies followed by warm. 
• In contrast, precipitation and river flow were less than average over most of the year: 2023 had persistent dry conditions (except for December) and lower than average river flow.  Both led to higher salinity throughout the year and one of the saltiest years on record. Seawater oxygen concentration fit a variable pattern, with most basins showing weak positive DO anomalies during the first half of the year and negative anomalies in the fall, though no fish kills were observed.
• Perhaps variation in these unique conditions led to somewhat of an ‘oddball’ year for plankton. Atypical phytoplankton community composition was observed in many areas, where many of the usual taxa were either absent or atypically low and some species not previously seen were observed. Some harmful algal bloom species decreased while others increased. Zooplankton abundances and biomass were lower and peaked later for many taxa compared to past years, and some community composition changes were observed compared to prior years.
• Higher trophic levels had mixed signals, with both successes and failures for herring, some hopeful news for some seabirds, but worrisome records for marine mammals in the San Juan Islands.
• A human footprint was clearly evident, with climate change effects, increasing carbon dioxide concentrations, and pervasive and increasing microplastics in Puget Sound sediments. As always, a single year is difficult to decipher, but the continued documentation of annual patterns via this overview will help us to identify emerging conditions.

Congratulations to the editorial team and to all those who contributed to this year's report!