This project is aimed toward better understanding nutrient limitation of phytoplankton in Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries. Leveraging novel statistical approaches and long-term monitoring data sets from the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership, this project helps understand whether nutrient limitation patterns have changed in response to decades of nutrient reduction efforts.

Ecosystem based management (EBM) is a holistic and adaptive approach to developing effective policies for ensuring ecosystem sustainability, food and water security, and improved human health outcomes for future generations. Informed by science, it incorporates the entire ecosystem, including humans, into resource management decisions. Importantly, EBM explicitly considers tradeoffs in resource uses while protecting and sustaining diverse and productive ecosystems and the services they provide.

This project is aimed toward better understanding the current status and long-term trends of Chesapeake Bay in terms of its water quality standards attainment.