USGS leads STAC report on Land Management Effects on Water-Quality Status and Trends Active
The Chesapeake Bay is a degraded eutrophic ecosystem with periodic hypoxia and anoxia, algal blooms, diminished submerged aquatic vegetation, and depleted stocks of finfish, crabs, and oysters (Kemp et al. 2005). Since 1983, the seven jurisdictions within the Chesapeake Bay watershed (Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia) have worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal, academic, and non-governmental organizations – known collectively as the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership (“the Partnership”) – under a voluntary framework to prescribe and perform actions to restore the Chesapeake Bay. The principal actions taken were designed to lessen the amounts of N, P, and sediment to the Chesapeake Bay, as these constituents are deemed the principal drivers of the Chesapeake Bay’s impairment.
The Chesapeake Bay is a degraded eutrophic ecosystem with periodic hypoxia and anoxia, algal blooms, diminished submerged aquatic vegetation, and depleted stocks of finfish, crabs, and oysters (Kemp et al. 2005). Since 1983, the seven jurisdictions within the Chesapeake Bay watershed (Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia) have worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal, academic, and non-governmental organizations – known collectively as the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership (“the Partnership”) – under a voluntary framework to prescribe and perform actions to restore the Chesapeake Bay. The principal actions taken were designed to lessen the amounts of N, P, and sediment to the Chesapeake Bay, as these constituents are deemed the principal drivers of the Chesapeake Bay’s impairment. However, voluntary actions taken between 1985 and 2010 failed to improve conditions sufficiently to attain the water quality standards established to protect the aquatic living resources of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries (USEPA 2003). As a result, in 2010 the EPA established the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), a historic and comprehensive “pollution diet” designed to restore the Bay’s water quality (USEPA 2010).
The Chesapeake Bay TMDL – the largest ever developed by the EPA – identifies reductions in N, P, and sediment pollution across all Chesapeake Bay watershed jurisdictions that are necessary to meet applicable water quality standards (USEPA 2010). Specifically, the TMDL calls for a 25% reduction in N, 24% reduction in P, and 20% reduction in sediment from 2009 measures. These pollution limits are allocated by jurisdiction and major river basins. In order to meet these goals, the TMDL is designed to ensure that all pollution control measures necessary to fully restore the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal rivers are implemented by 2025, with management actions to achieve at least 60% of the reductions in place by 2017.
As a central part of the restoration effort, the Partnership has committed to using an adaptive management framework to define its goals, to develop and implement the requisite management strategies, to assess performance of those strategies, and to revise the strategies to improve program performance based on new insights (CBP 2011; CBP 2014). In keeping with this framework, between 2010 and 2012 jurisdictions were required to develop watershed implementation plans (WIPs) that would guide the execution of sufficient activities to meet the goals of the TMDL. Phase I and Phase II WIPs (finalized in 2010 and 2012, respectively) guide the jurisdictions’ restoration activities through 2017.
In 2017, a process called the Chesapeake Bay TMDL Midpoint Assessment (MPA) will entail the review of the jurisdictions’ past and planned implementation of pollution management strategies. The purpose of this review is to determine whether jurisdictions are on track to achieve the goal of implementing all management practices necessary to attain water quality standards in the Chesapeake Bay by 2025. Findings from the 2017 MPA may help jurisdictions prepare Phase III WIPs, which will guide the development of two-year milestones and installation/adoption of best management practices (BMPs) from 2018-2025.
Knowledge of the effectiveness of actions taken to reduce N, P, and sediment loads to the Chesapeake Bay is essential to the “assess performance” step of the adaptive management framework described above. Developing this knowledge for the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed will require an unprecedented integration of the latest advances in analytics and modeling with all data available on water quality, climate, landscape and airshed characteristics, demographics and land use change, and the implementation of BMPs throughout the watershed.
In March 2014, STAC and the Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology co-sponsored the “Management Effects on Water Quality Trends (MEOWQT)” workshop to solicit input and recommendations on the most promising analytical approaches for detecting linkages between management activities on the land and changes in water quality of the Chesapeake Bay. Attendees were also asked to describe the types of data required for successfully implementing the recommended approaches.
Read more: Estimating Land Management Effects on Water Quality Status and Trends
♦ Back to Chesapeake Bay Activities Water Quality
The Chesapeake Bay is a degraded eutrophic ecosystem with periodic hypoxia and anoxia, algal blooms, diminished submerged aquatic vegetation, and depleted stocks of finfish, crabs, and oysters (Kemp et al. 2005). Since 1983, the seven jurisdictions within the Chesapeake Bay watershed (Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia) have worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal, academic, and non-governmental organizations – known collectively as the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership (“the Partnership”) – under a voluntary framework to prescribe and perform actions to restore the Chesapeake Bay. The principal actions taken were designed to lessen the amounts of N, P, and sediment to the Chesapeake Bay, as these constituents are deemed the principal drivers of the Chesapeake Bay’s impairment.
The Chesapeake Bay is a degraded eutrophic ecosystem with periodic hypoxia and anoxia, algal blooms, diminished submerged aquatic vegetation, and depleted stocks of finfish, crabs, and oysters (Kemp et al. 2005). Since 1983, the seven jurisdictions within the Chesapeake Bay watershed (Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia) have worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal, academic, and non-governmental organizations – known collectively as the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership (“the Partnership”) – under a voluntary framework to prescribe and perform actions to restore the Chesapeake Bay. The principal actions taken were designed to lessen the amounts of N, P, and sediment to the Chesapeake Bay, as these constituents are deemed the principal drivers of the Chesapeake Bay’s impairment. However, voluntary actions taken between 1985 and 2010 failed to improve conditions sufficiently to attain the water quality standards established to protect the aquatic living resources of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries (USEPA 2003). As a result, in 2010 the EPA established the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), a historic and comprehensive “pollution diet” designed to restore the Bay’s water quality (USEPA 2010).
The Chesapeake Bay TMDL – the largest ever developed by the EPA – identifies reductions in N, P, and sediment pollution across all Chesapeake Bay watershed jurisdictions that are necessary to meet applicable water quality standards (USEPA 2010). Specifically, the TMDL calls for a 25% reduction in N, 24% reduction in P, and 20% reduction in sediment from 2009 measures. These pollution limits are allocated by jurisdiction and major river basins. In order to meet these goals, the TMDL is designed to ensure that all pollution control measures necessary to fully restore the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal rivers are implemented by 2025, with management actions to achieve at least 60% of the reductions in place by 2017.
As a central part of the restoration effort, the Partnership has committed to using an adaptive management framework to define its goals, to develop and implement the requisite management strategies, to assess performance of those strategies, and to revise the strategies to improve program performance based on new insights (CBP 2011; CBP 2014). In keeping with this framework, between 2010 and 2012 jurisdictions were required to develop watershed implementation plans (WIPs) that would guide the execution of sufficient activities to meet the goals of the TMDL. Phase I and Phase II WIPs (finalized in 2010 and 2012, respectively) guide the jurisdictions’ restoration activities through 2017.
In 2017, a process called the Chesapeake Bay TMDL Midpoint Assessment (MPA) will entail the review of the jurisdictions’ past and planned implementation of pollution management strategies. The purpose of this review is to determine whether jurisdictions are on track to achieve the goal of implementing all management practices necessary to attain water quality standards in the Chesapeake Bay by 2025. Findings from the 2017 MPA may help jurisdictions prepare Phase III WIPs, which will guide the development of two-year milestones and installation/adoption of best management practices (BMPs) from 2018-2025.
Knowledge of the effectiveness of actions taken to reduce N, P, and sediment loads to the Chesapeake Bay is essential to the “assess performance” step of the adaptive management framework described above. Developing this knowledge for the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed will require an unprecedented integration of the latest advances in analytics and modeling with all data available on water quality, climate, landscape and airshed characteristics, demographics and land use change, and the implementation of BMPs throughout the watershed.
In March 2014, STAC and the Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology co-sponsored the “Management Effects on Water Quality Trends (MEOWQT)” workshop to solicit input and recommendations on the most promising analytical approaches for detecting linkages between management activities on the land and changes in water quality of the Chesapeake Bay. Attendees were also asked to describe the types of data required for successfully implementing the recommended approaches.
Read more: Estimating Land Management Effects on Water Quality Status and Trends
♦ Back to Chesapeake Bay Activities Water Quality