UMCES/IAN Partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Program

The University of Maryland and the Integration and Application Network maintain a partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Program.

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The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) has a well developed partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP). Environmental assessment and science communication of restoration projects is a topic in which the Integration and Application Network (IAN) has been actively involved, including in its partnership with CBP. UMCES scientists are particularly knowledgeable about watershed and estuarine processes and provide technical assistance and training opportunities for CBP activities. In addition, UMCES scientists have experience with innovative approaches (e.g. nutrient trading) in restoration ecology. UMCES uses its Annapolis Liaison Office for much of the project management, coordination, and administration of the UMCES/CBP partnership.

The key mission of UMCES is to support and facilitate environmental research. The Center and its faculty was one of the first institutions to recognize the linkages between watershed and estuarine processes. UMCES has developed facilities and faculty at its Appalachian Laboratory (AL) in Western Maryland to focus on watershed processes, making this link to estuarine processes a distinguishing attribute of this unique institution. The geographic spread of the Center is one of its strengths with AL in the upper Potomac watershed, Horn Point Laboratory (HPL) on the Eastern Shore, and Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (CBL) in Southern Maryland. The offices for Maryland Sea Grant are near the University of Maryland College Park campus, while the Integration and Application Network (IAN) is based in a newly renovated building on the HPL campus. This geographic spread has made the Center a leader in communicating through remote technologies, heavily relying upon Interactive Video Networking (IVN) and web-based video conferencing technology. UMCES prides itself on being at the forefront of technological advancements for communications and IAN has taken the lead in expanding these efforts. For example, the IAN seminar series based in Annapolis is recorded and can be viewed online as a multimedia presentation. In addition, UMCES maintains an Annapolis Liaison Office which is used successfully to work with regional environmental decision makers and assists in the management of eight scientists located at the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP).

The CBP partnership was established in 1983 with a charter to protect and restore Chesapeake Bay. Recent cost estimates to restore water quality in Chesapeake Bay are in excess of $20 billion, and the CBP is subjected to intensive and continual scrutiny. There is an opportunity to have national and international impact through dissemination of results. Chesapeake Bay is considered the ‘model’ ecosystem restoration program in the world, and thus needs to have the necessary science underpinnings to showcase the application of an adaptive management approach using science-based ecosystem management.

UMCES is uniquely positioned to deal with issues on a holistic watershed basis and therefore is ideally suited to support the CBP by interacting with and supporting locally-led efforts within the watersheds to focus regional and state efforts. It is essential that the restoration efforts be carefully targeted and well coordinated to explicitly solve the current environmental challenges facing Chesapeake Bay. UMCES, and in particular the IAN initiative, is striving to forge linkages between management, monitoring, and research within the Chesapeake Bay region through promoting interactions between technical resources within the scientific community and the needs of the management community. Some of the IAN activities that have been initiated include the following: the newsletter series, which cogently takes complex scientific knowledge and distills it into information useful to the management community; conferences relevant to specific issues (such as the Hurricane Isabel in Perspective conference); and an Annapolis seminar series which aims to actively link researchers and managers by accessing expertise on a wide range of relevant watershed and Bay issues.

UMCES also works in partnership with the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, and these collaborative efforts are increasingly linking these institutions with the specific aim of maximizing overall resources and establishing more effective results. The NOAA/UMCES partnership at Oxford is an example, and this partnerships links through the Tidal Monitoring Assessment Workgroup (TMAW) to assisting CBP in the redesign of the monitoring framework and indicators within Chesapeake Bay.

Another activity by IAN is the development of a series of lectures, short courses, and week-long university credit courses in science communication. IAN has offered a half-day course for the CBP fellows in March, 2005. In addition, CBP staff have enrolled in the 2004 and 2005 week-long courses, while short course (two half-days) is being offered to CBP staff and partners in May 2005. In addition to a newsletter, poster, and online resources, IAN staff have produced a handbook for this course which will be published in 2005. One of the online features developed by IAN is a downloadable symbol library which has over 8,000 registered users in 168 countries.

Staff at UMCES-IAN are actively collaborating with CBP personnel to redesign the manner in which the CBP indictors are structured and communicated. This redesign effort, led by the Indicator Redesign Taskforce (IRT), will ultimately result in substantial changes to Bay monitoring, data management, and associated communication strategy. UMCES-IAN staff are now actively involved in the Monitoring Analysis Subcommittee (MASC) and the Tidal Monitoring and Analysis Workgroup (TMAW), which are the groups within the CBP that are spearheading the implementation of many of the Indicator Redesign Taskforce recommendations.

Project Title	ID Number	Award Amount	Date	Description of Results
Modeling, GIS, and Data Analysis to Support the Chesapeake Bay Program	CB993586-02, CB983452-01, 02, 03, 04	$447,145 (annual basis average)	06/01/99-06/30/04	UMCES employs scientific staff members to the CBP to address modeling, monitoring, and GIS needs. (Previous to 2000, this was titled “Technical Support Services in Modeling and Monitoring for the Chesapeake Bay Program Office”)
Effects of Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition on Algal Assemblages in Chesapeake Bay	CB983035-01	$44,404	04/04/99-03/31/00	The effects of atmospheric nitrogen deposition on populations of planktonic algae were determined by performing bioassays of algal growth.
Assessment of Ammonia Emissions and Deposition from Agricultural Operations and Areas in the Chesapeake Bay Airshed	CB983434-01, 02	$132,859 (annual basis average)	06/18/01-09/30/03	This study provided the first quantitative assessment of atmospheric ammonia levels and impacts in urban and agricultural regions of the Chesapeake Bay. This study also provided the atmospheric chemical characterization necessary to calibrate the regional air quality models.
Local Government Partnership Initiative	X983329-01, 02, 03, 04	$191,946 (annual basis average)	08/01/00-08/31/04	The Environmental Finance Center developed information and tools to assist in local decision-making, including: sustainable development workshops, C2K forums, financial management training for smart growth, etc.
Impact of Exotic Species in the Chesapeake Watershed: A Workshop to Development Management Strategies	CB983483-01	$12,066	09/01/01-08/31/02	A 2-day workshop was organized and facilitated. During this workshop, scientists evaluated the status of scientific knowledge of exotic species in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The relative risk of each of these species was determined, and species management plans were developed.
Blue Ribbon Panel Final Synthesis and Reporting	CB973138-01	$84,493	09/01/04-08/31/05	MD Sea Grant assisted in the functions of a Blue Ribbon Panel, in order to help explore and recommend innovative and effective funding mechanisms and strategies for the reduction of nutrients and sediments in the Chesapeake Bay.