Many of the datasets in the previous version of SalmonScape were obsolete and not supported by WDFW or any other agency. We have removed those. Over the next year we will be adding additional layers. On deck are additional freshwater species, forage fish, herring, LLID whole stream identifiers, USGS stream gauges, and several flavors of river mile benchmarks.

See the SaSI FAQ for information on stock distributions and reports.

We will be adding additional locators over the next year. These will include searches by river / stream name, river miles on these streams, SaSI stocks, Facilities names, and Fish Passage barriers IDs.

WDFW and NOAA are in the process of redefining many SaSI stocks to be the same as NOAA Technical Recovery Team populations. Some stocks have been newly defined, others have been declared non-active, others have been aggregated or split into new stocks. We are in the process of remapping these updated stocks and expect to add them to SalmonScape this summer.

In the meantime you can go to WDFW SCoRE. Stock reports are available on the Species tab. Once we add SaSI back into SalmonScape there will be a direct link between the map and the reports.

These layers are so dense that we only show them when zoomed in. They will appear when:

Facilities Symbols: scalebar reads 6mi or less.

Facilities Labels: scalebar reads 3mi or less

Fish Passage Barrier Symbols: scalebar reads 2 mi or less

Fish Passage Barrier Labels: scalebar reads 1 mi or less

The map scale relates a distance on the map to the distance it represents on the earth. For example, a map scale of 1:24,000 (the scale used for paper USGS 7.5’ topographic maps), means that 1 inch on the map equals 24,000 inches, or 2000 feet, or 0.3788 miles on the earth. Map scale is a bit problematic on a digital map, where the size of the map can vary according to your screen size or browser window size. Nevertheless, map scale is commonly used for digital maps.

We use a series of scales developed by Google for Google Maps and Google Earth and widely adopted by most web mapping sites that use imagery and basemaps. Each scale level is twice the previous scale. This table shows how the SalmonScape scalebar label, and the zoom control position relates to the map scale.

The Click to Identify tool looks at a 3x3 pixel neighborhood on the screen. If you are zoomed way out, that can include multiple adjacent features. It also returns information about every active layer. If you are getting too many responses, try zooming in closer, and turn off layers that you are not interested in.

For hydro features we only show certain major features when zoomed out. As you zoom in closer you see increasingly detailed features. If you use Identify when zoomed out it can pick up hydro features that are not visible that scale. If you zoom in so the scalebar reads 1mi or less all the hydro features will be displayed.

If you see a vertical scroll bar on the right of the map window, make sure that it is scrolled to the very top. The scrollbar can appear if you browser window is small and you do an operation that opens a popup window. This can include the basemap window, the identify window, or others.

Check out the SalmonScape Help page. There are links to additional information in the Layer Specific Information section.

The map opens in a popup window. Please make sure that you have popup windows enabled for SalmonScape.

SalmonScape was developed for Chrome and Internet Explorer 9.0 and higher. It may not work with other browsers or older versions of Internet Explorer. The IE security setting must be set to "Medium". SalmonScape works best with screen resolutions of 1024 X 768.

Selected datasets will be available for download at the Washington State Geospatial Portal GIS Data Catalog. Data will be available as ESRI 10.1 File Geodatabases and shapefiles. For now you can only download data for the entire state.

Any public map services will be discoverable via the Washington State Geospatial Portal.

High resolution recent orthophotos (like Google Earth or Bing) are both a benefit and a problem for feature based GIS databases. By necessity, spatial feature data are snapshots and approximations of reality. Real reality as represented on high quality recent imagery usually trumps the virtual reality represented by a GIS feature. Many GIS features are only accurate at a specific scale or smaller (like 1:24,000, 1:250,000). Even USGS 7.5 minute (1:24,000) topographic quads (which are the original source data for many GIS features) define accurate as 90% of well-defined points must be with +/- 40 ft of their true location. More information on USGS map accuracy standards can be found at USGS Map Accuracy Standards.

All digital databases contain errors. Some of these are due to the fact that things change – streams can change with each winter storm. Fish distributions change through time both naturally and in response to human actions. Hatcheries are closed or change ownership. Fish Passage Barriers are repaired. We attempt to keep our databases up to date and correct, but it is a daunting task in this age of fewer government resources. Input from local knowledge can help us improve our data for the benefit of all.

If you see something that you think is incorrect, send an email to SalmonScape@dfw.wa.gov. Please include a share link from the application to show us where you think the problem is and describe the error as completely as possible. We will log your notification and, depending on what the issue is, run it by our local district biologists or other experts. Please be patient as it might take quite a while before we update the database behind the application.

If you have updated bulk data to share (a National Forest, a county, a consultant doing stream surveys…) please let us know via SalmonScape@dfw.wa.gov and we will contact you to discuss it.