"A lot of smart people have worked hard to assemble information on key pieces of the Puget Sound ecosystem, but no one agency or organization has been able to pull the data into a cohesive whole," says Jeff Richey, professor with the School of Oceanography and one of the leaders behind the Puget Sound Regional Synthesis Model or PRISM.

Richey and other faculty believe that the UW is in a prime position to do this for the region for two key reasons. First, the UW is not bound by the jurisdictions that govern local, county, tribal and even state entities. Secondly, the UW has expertise across broad areas ranging from urban planning to fisheries to forest resources to geography, all of which bear on the health of Puget Sound.

Thanks to funding from the University Initiatives Fund, UW researchers across these and other disciplines are working with community entities on this effort, Richey says.

The University Initiatives Fund, proposed by President Richard McCormick in 1996, reallocates resources from across campus to underwrite innovative new programs strategically selected to strengthen the University and seize opportunities that otherwise would not be pursued.

Researchers involved with the Puget Sound project plan to have their first version of the virtual Puget Sound completed by mid-fall. Everyone is welcome to check the progress at http://www.cqs.washington.edu/prism/.

The model starts with the biophysical structure and includes what's known about the topography of the region from the mountaintops to the floor of Puget Sound. Onto this, researchers will add other layers of information about such things as the streams, lakes and rivers that feed into the sound, land cover (where are the forests, parking lots and soccer fields) and weather patterns.

Then, by incorporating information about how past decisions and land-use practices have impacted the region, a model should begin to emerge that can be used to weigh choices about the future.

A major goal of the project is to develop the model in such a way that everyone—from Gov. Gary Locke to students in K-12—can sit down and use it. Here at the UW, project participants are already considering ways the model could be used for undergraduate and graduate education that will draw from colleges across campus such as Architecture and Urban Planning, Forest Resources, Engineering, Ocean and Fishery Sciences, Education and Arts and Sciences.

Another primary goal is to make sure the model meets the needs of citizens, business leaders, organizations, agency personnel and elected officials, not just the needs of scientists.

"We've been asking what each agency and organization needs, instead of concentrating on what the UW thinks they need," Richey says.

The outreach actually started two years ago when the Washington Sea Grant program, based here at the UW, provided seed money so that UW faculty and representatives of many off-campus groups could discuss ways to synthesize the wealth of data that already existed.

"Money from the University Initiatives Fund is providing the backbone or core for our effort," Richey says. ¶

Sandra Hines, News and Information