Five years of collaborative study on the threats to the regional’s existing open spaces, the value and benefits of open spaces to address our regional challenges, and possible pathway to open space preservation and enhancement have informed the findings and proposed actions in this Final Strategy Report. Individual studies and useful tools are contained in the Report’s Appendices which are linked separately below.
This shorter summary outlines the primary challenges, findings, and five key strategies to preserve and enhance the region’s open spaces.
Documenting the initial investigation into the need for a Regional Open Space Strategy, the report identifies an effective stakeholder engagement process, appropriate analytical methods, and required resources for the ROSS project. Key findings within the report include verification that a regional open space strategy is needed, and that the planning process must work regionally as well as on the watershed scale.
Compiles the work of the four Technical Advisory Committees (TACs) on ecosystems, rural and resource lands, recreation and trails, and urban and community development. The four TACs represent the four components of a robust open space network, and informed the Preliminary Comprehensive Strategy.
The ROSS Preliminary Strategy outlines the ROSS vision derived from extensive expert engagement, and lays out a work plan strategy, tools, and frameworks necessary to guide the development of seven Watershed Open Space Strategies (WOSSes) and a coalesced Regional Open Space Strategy.
Appendix D: Addressing Regional Challenges through Open Space
This section provides
(D1) a summary of the work of the ROSS Ecosystem Services Committee, with an overview and synthesis of five white papers on how open space conservation and enhancement can significantly address five regional challenges: Climate Change; Biodiversity; Social Equity; Public Health, and Economic Development. The synthesis paper includes recommended metrics and regional open space actions to address each challenge. Appendix D also contains the five original white papers produced by ROSS staff and local experts, on open space related to:
(D2) Climate Change; (D3) Biodiversity; (D4) Social Equity; (D5) Human Health and
(D6) Economic Development.
This study quantifies the value of the region’s open spaces, as economic assets and their annual contributions to the region’s economy. The study produced by Earth Economics uses the ROSS Open Space Services framework applied to land cover data to conservatively quantify values provided by regional open spaces. (see also Chapter 5)
Appendix F: Ecosystem Service Fact Sheets
Four summary studies on ecosystem service valuation related to our regional open spaces, produced by Earth Economics for the ROSS:
Examines the conversion of urbanizing resource lands through a case study. The study examined one of the Puyallup-White WOSS priority areas, the Green-Y southeast of Tacoma, focusing on the conversion pressures on existing agricultural and working forest resource lands. It demonstrated how much the expected future loss of these lands could cost, and recommends policy changes that could better conserve these lands within the Green-Y. These findings and recommendations have broader implications for the region, which have been
summarized in a pamphlet (G2) for use by local governments to assist in reducing the conversion of working farm and forest lands.
This first “WOSS” identifies opportunities for enhancing stewardship and access to public lands, as well as priority areas for securing conservation lands. The report presents actions to achieve these goals in four categories: 1) ecosystems, especially aquatic systems and biodiversity; 2) health, active living and recreation; 3) resource lands and working landscapes; and 4) community and economic development. Regionally significant actions are synthesized into four geographically linked proposed strategies.
The ROSS “Our Green/Duwamish” Team conducted focus groups, open houses, interviews and an online survey to collect contextual information from those knowledgeable about the Green/Duwamish Watershed, gather data and plans regarding the watershed, and identify potential actions to enhance its air, land, and water resources. The findings were consolidated into 75 ideas, and then further into a set of 39 key concepts that were considered by the Watershed Advisory Group.
The Snohomish WOSS Identifies broad strategies to guide open space conservation in the Snohomish watershed, based on extensive study of existing environmental and economic conditions, and through interviews and interactive workshops. The study also identified ecosystem service “hot spots” to inform planning. Staff coordinated with county, state, municipal and non-profit planners to create and evaluate spatial scenarios, to understand the multiple benefits of potential collaborative actions and proposals.
A study and recommendations for implementation of the Regional Open Space Strategy for the Central Puget Sound provided by graduate students of the UW Evans School of Public Affairs. The paper presents case studies of regional governance mechanisms, evaluates financing mechanisms used in the Central Puget Sound, and suggests models for regional governance that would be viable to advance multi-benefit open space conservation and enhancement in the Central Puget Sound region.
Appendix L: Open Space Services Assessment Tool
ROSS staff worked with the Trust for Public Land to inform development of an on-line web tool that provides information about the “open space services” provided by land cover in the Central Puget Sound region. The tool employs the ROSS Open Space Service Framework categories, and can convey data and reports on the benefits that specific land cover provides in relation to biodiversity, climate mitigation and adaptation, economy, social equity, and health. The tool includes current demographic data, and may be developed in the future to have the capacity to compare the benefits of various planning scenarios.
To summarize and publicize the need for a Regional Open Space Strategy in an easily consumed format, ROSS staff worked with Resource Media and videographer Harley Pan to produce a short video that conveys the importance of our regional open spaces and utilizes a portion of the ROSS “flyover” video highlighting some of the most important regional lands needing conservation. More comprehensive 3-D modeling flyover video to integrate overlapping regional open space priorities was also produced by ROSS staff, and is contained in the ROSS archives.
