The partners of the Chesapeake Bay are investing billions of dollars in the restoration of critical habitats to improve conditions for people and living resources throughout the Bay and its watershed. However, the recent proliferation of invasive Ictalurus furcatus (blue catfish) in the Chesapeake Bay’s major rivers has the potential to disrupt these restoration efforts and limit the full potential improvement of the ecosystem.

The Chesapeake Bay Partnership is implementing conservation practices (CPs) throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed to reduce nutrient and sediment delivery to the Bay. This study intends to provide an integrated and detailed understanding of how local streams respond to these CP-driven management efforts. The publication can also be found on the USGS website here.

Agricultural lands are an important part of the economy and heritage of the Chesapeake Bay watershed and are a focus of conservation activities. Streams and rivers around farms provide communities with drinking water and recreational opportunities, but these local benefits can be impaired by elevated nutrient and sediment concentrations.

The James Tributary Summary outlines change over time for a suite of monitored tidal water quality parameters and associated potential drivers of those trends for the period 1985 – 2021 and provides a brief description of the current state of knowledge explaining these observed changes.

The Chesapeake Bay Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) and IAN have partnered to synthesize the contents of their latest publication on Rising Watershed and Bay Water Temperatures— Ecological Implications and Management Responses into a report summary outlining key management and research recommendations, the causes and effects of rising water temperatures, and actions for moving forward. This document also builds on the previous STAC Rising Water Temperatures Workshop newsletter.

This publication serves as a summary of Gordon et al. (2022) and was prepared in collaboration between the USGS and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Integration and Application Network. The summary touches on key findings of the study along with management implications and applications. Please feel free to download the summary here or check it out on the USGS website:

IAN Staff and the visiting Global Sustainability Scholars hosted a Middle Potomac Listening Session in July 2022 to begin developing the upcoming Potomac Watershed COAST Card.

This document describes the methods and development process for the Upper Rio Grande Basin Report Card.

Reporting on the State of the Maryland Coastal Bays is an opportunity to step back and reflect on the status and trends of key environmental features in this iconic region. The theme of this State of the Coastal Bays is building ecological resilience in the region. This focus on resilience is due to the convergence of several factors:

Every five years, The Maryland Coastal Bays Program publishes its State of the Bays Report, accompanied by the annual Maryland Coastal Bays Report Card. The theme of the 2022 State of the Coastal Bays is building ecological resilience in the region. This focus on resilience is due to the convergence of several factors: