IAN is committed to producing practical, user-centered communications that foster a better understanding of science and enable readers to pursue new opportunities in research, education, and environmental problem-solving. Our publications synthesize scientific findings using effective science communication techniques.

Nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed A Century of Change 1950-2050 (Page 1)

Nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay watershed: A century of change, 1950–2050

Clune JW, Capel PD, Miller MP, Burns DA, Sekellick AJ, Claggett PR, Coupe RH, Fanelli RM, Garcia AM, Raffensperger JP, Terziotti S, Bhatt G, Blomquist JD, Hopkins KG, Keisman JL, Linker, LC Shenk GW, Smith, RA, Soroka AM, Webber JS, Wolock DM, Zhang Q ·
10 November 2021

Nitrogen, a critical element in all forms of life, is continuously being passed from nonliving to living matter and then back again, but an excess of this nutrient can have adverse effects on aquatic environments. An understanding of the past, present, and future sources, movement, and fate of nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay watershed can help inform efforts to bring this cycle back into balance (fig. OV.1).

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2019-2020 Maryland Coastal Bays Report Card (Page 1)

2019-2020 Maryland Coastal Bays Report Card

Alexandra Fries, Nathan Miller, Bill Dennison, Heath Kelsey ·
13 October 2021

The aim of this report card is to provide a transparent, timely, and geographically detailed assessment of 2019-2020 Coastal Bays health. Coastal Bays health is defined as the progress of four water quality indicators (total nitrogen, total phosphorus, chlorophyll a, dissolved oxygen) and two biotic indicators (seagrass, hard clams) toward scientifically derived ecological thresholds or goals.

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Multi-scale trend analysis of water quality using error propagation of generalized additive models (Page 1)

Multi-scale trend analysis of water quality using error propagation of generalized additive models

Beck MW, Valpine PD, Murphy R, Wren I, Chelsky A, Foley M, Senn DB ·
2021

Effective stewardship of ecosystems to sustain current ecological status or mitigate impacts requires nuanced understanding of how conditions have changed over time in response to anthropogenic pressures and natural variability. Detecting and appropriately characterizing changes requires accurate and flexible trend assessment methods that can be readily applied to environmental monitoring datasets. A key requirement is complete propagation of uncertainty through the analysis.

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2020 Integration and Application Network Report Card (Page 1)

2020 Integration and Application Network Report Card

Alexandra Fries ·
26 July 2021

In the annual IAN Report Card, IAN staff reflect on accomplishments from 2020. The self-assessment is based on indicators in three categories: social impacts, ecological outcomes, and partner engagement. Overall, IAN received an overall grade of C (78%) which is a decrease from the 2019 score of B (84%).

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Inferring Controls on Dissolved Oxygen Criterion Attainment in the Chesapeake Bay (Page 1)

Inferring controls on dissolved oxygen criterion attainment in the Chesapeake Bay

Langendorf RE, Lyubchich V, Testa JM, Zhang Q ·
2021

Environmental monitoring programs generate multivariate time series for the assessment of ecosystem health. Recent developments in causal inference offer ways to translate these observational data into networks able to explain gains and losses in the trajectories of indicator variables. Here, we present a case study of this approach using surface water dissolved oxygen (DO) criteria attainment across the Chesapeake Bay.

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Chesapeake legacies: The importance of legacy nitrogen to improving Chesapeake Bay water quality (Page 1)

Chesapeake legacies: The importance of legacy nitrogen to improving Chesapeake Bay water quality

Chang SY, Zhang Q, Byrnes DK, Basu NB, Van Meter KJ ·
2021

In the Chesapeake Bay, excess nitrogen (N) from both landscape and atmospheric sources has for decades fueled algal growth, disrupted aquatic ecosystems, and negatively impacted coastal economies. Since the 1980s, Chesapeake Bay Program partners have worked to implement a wide range of measures across the region—from the upgrading of wastewater treatment plants to implementation of farm-level best management practices—to reduce N fluxes to the Bay.

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Supporting cost-effective watershed management strategies for Chesapeake Bay using a modeling and optimization framework (Page 1)

Supporting cost-effective watershed management strategies for Chesapeake Bay using a modeling and optimization framework

Kaufman DE, Shenk GW, Bhatt G, Asplen KW, Devereux OH, Rigelman JR, Ellis JH, Hobbs BF, Bosch DJ, Houtven GLV, McGarity AE, Linker LC, Ball WP ·
2021

Extensive efforts to adaptively manage nutrient pollution rely on Chesapeake Bay Program’s (Phase 6) Watershed Model, called Chesapeake Assessment Scenario Tool (CAST), which helps decision-makers plan and track implementation of Best Management Practices (BMPs). We describe mathematical characteristics of CAST and develop a constrained nonlinear BMP-subset model, software, and visualization framework.

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USGS Chesapeake Science Strategy 2021-2025 (Page 1)

USGS Chesapeake Science Strategy 2021-2025

Hyer, K., Phillips, S. ·
2 July 2021

The Chesapeake Bay ecosystem is a national treasure that provides almost $100 billion annually of goods and services. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP), is one of the largest federal-state restoration partnerships in the United States and is underpinned by rigorous science. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a pivotal role as a science provider for assessing ecosystem condition and response in the Chesapeake watershed.

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