Publications

In December 1983 seven hundred legislators, administrators, scientists and Bay users met in Fairfax, VA to develop an action agenda for Chesapeake Bay. This historic conference was convened by the Governors of VA, MD, and PA and the mayor of DC, Administrator of the EPA and the Chesapeake Bay Commission.

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In April 2003, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Dissolved Oxygen, Water Clarity and Chlorophyll a for the Chesapeake Bay and Its Tidal Tributaries (Regional Criteria Guidance) in cooperation with and on behalf of the six watershed statesNew York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginiaand the District of Columbia. At the time of publication of the Regional Criteria Guidance document, a number of technical issues still remained to be worked through, resolved and documented. This first EPA published addendum to the 2003 Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Dissolved Oxygen, Water Clarity and Chlorophyll a for the Chesapeake Bay and Its Tidal Tributaries documents the resolution of and recommendations for addressing a number technical issues and criteria attainment procedures. This document should be viewed by readers as supplemental chapters and appendices to the original published Regional Criteria Guidance document. The publication of future addendums by EPA is likely as continued scientific research and management application reveal new insights and knowledge to be incorporated into revisions of state water quality standards regulations in upcoming triennial reviews.

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In October 2003, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the Technical Support Document for Identification of Chesapeake Bay Designated Uses and Attainability (Technical Support Document) in cooperation with and on behalf of the six watershed statesNew York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginiaand the District of Columbia. At the time of publication of the Technical Support Document, a number of technical designated use and attainability issues still remained to be worked through, resolved and documented. This EPA published addendum to the 2003 Technical Support Document for Identification of Chesapeake Bay Designated Uses and Attainability provides expanded designated use related documentation not available to the partners at the time of publication of the Technical Support Document. This document should be viewed by readers as supplemental chapters and appendices to the original published Technical Support Document.

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For the last 20 years, the Chesapeake Bay Program partners have used various forms of a basic segmentation scheme to organize the collection, analysis and presentation of environmental data. The Chesapeake Bay Program Segmentation Scheme Revisions, Decisions and Rationales 1983-2003 provides documentation on the development of the spatial segmentation scheme of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries and the later revisions and changes over the last 20 years. It contains information on the 1983-1985 original segmentation, the 1997-1998 revisions for the 1997 Re-evaluation, and the 2003 segmentation corrections and expansion.

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The Chesapeake Bay Program has been in existence since the mid 1970s. This progress report is intended to give you a quick overview of the program's many accomplishments, as well as a look at the challenges we face in the near future.

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This report provides an overview of the major research findings and range of pollution controls recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program, in accordance with P.L. 94-116 passed by the 94th Congress on October 17, 1975.

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This document is the second of the Program's four final reports. It is intended to share the results and significance of the Chesapeake Bay Program's technical studies with managers, decision-makers and citizens.

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This primer serves as an introduction to several forthcoming Chesapeake Bay Program publications. These publications will describe the results of the scientific investigations and identify management solutions to specific Bay resource problems. They present, in an easy to understand yet information manner, key issues and concerns pertaining to the Chesapeake Bay.

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Available in digital format. The Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) Shallow Water Monitoring workshop endorsed the current 3-year combined spatial and temporal coverage design of the Shallow Water Monitoring Program (SWMP) in order to meet the primary objective of assessing the new water quality criteria for dissolved oxygen, waster clarity, and chlorophyll. However, existing resources will not provide monitoring information for all Chesapeake Bay shallow water habitats by the Chesapeake 2000 agreements deadline of 2010. The workshop report presents several recommendations for improving the current monitoring strategy including the creation and prioritization of a monitoring schedule, suggested improvements to the network design, and coordination between the monitoring efforts and the modeling and research communities.

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Recent publications such as the Chesapeake 2000 agreement and the Fisheries Ecosystem Plan reflect the growing interest in integrated management of water quality and fisheries. The US EPA Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) has invested in a variety of numerical modeling approaches that address issues related to management of the estuary. One of these approaches is the Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Model which has been a primary tool used to simulate estuarine ecosystem responses to alternative nutrient and sediment watershed management policies. The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office (NCBO) has sponsored development of a fisheries-oriented trophic network model for the Bay using a widely applied software package, Ecopath with Ecosim. Members of the CBP Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC), working with the CBP Modeling Subcommittee and NCBO, organized a meeting to examine the potential for coupling these two modeling approaches to address questions pertaining to integrated management of water quality and fisheries. The workshop discussions led to several tentative conclusions regarding model coupling and recommendations for future actions which are contained in the workshop report.

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