Publications

In the summer of 1993 the State of Maryland convened the Oyster Roundtable to address major concerns about how to bring oyster stocks in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay back to economically and ecologically healthy levels. The Department of Natural Resources felt that it is time to bring all interested parties together because the oyster parasites MSX and Dermo, habitat losses, inadequate water quality, effects of harvesting and other factors have had significant impacts, for example approximately80% of the public oyster bars in Maryland waters are unharestable.

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This report present the policy options from the 2011 Manure-to-Enrgy Summit for the Chesapeake Bay region. Thye summit emphasized the triple benefits that manure-to-energy projects can offer-producing renewable energy, sustaining profitable farms, and improving water quality-while directing attention to policy changes that can create more of these projects in the Bay region.The Manure-to-Energy summit was hosted on September 8, 2011, byt the Chesapeake Bay Commission, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Maryland Technology Development Corporation, and Farm Pilot Project Coordination, Inc. The Summit was made possible through generous sponsorship from the KeithCampbell Foundation for the Environment, USDA and USEPA, Chesapeake Bay Program.

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This report represents the synthesis of information published in a variety of scientific reports or contained in established scientific databases. We collected no new data specifically for the production of this report. Because of the vast number of different research projects prducing the data used in this report, no attempt was made to verify the quality of these data. It was assumed that if the data were published or were stored in establisheddatabases that they had been verified. However, any data that appeared "unusual" or questionable were checked with the originator of those data. The spatial displays presented in this report were not prepared to meet EPA spatial locational gudielines; the displays were prepared from disparate datasets and represent a best attemtp at approximating location.

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Can we count on an abundance of Chesapeake blue crabs well into the future? This report sets about to answer some of these questions. There is some encouraging news: the four independent surveys of 2002-2003 suggest a stabilization of variable used by scientiists to track the Bay's crab population, particularly blue crab size and abundance. While these signs are positive, the technical experts responsible for this report caution that this stabilization takes place at a historic low point in the population, and they emphasize that we must stay true to the consensus statements reach by the Bi-State Blue Crab Advisory Committee, as stated in the bi-state action plan, Taking Action for the Blue Crab: Managing and Protecting the Stock and its fisheries (January 2001).

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In summer and fall 1997, the public learned of an environmental crisis in the Chesapeake Bay: Harmful algal blooms (HABs), epecially from the dinoglagellate Pfiersteria piscida, were reportedly cuasing helth problems for both fish and humans in the region. Intensive media coverage drove this issue to the forefront of the public consciousness and kepit there for more than a year.The reports of HABs and their attendant health problems in several relatively remote tidal tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay was the basis for fears that soon arrumed crisis proportions. Although the area ultimately affected was relatively small,the issue escalated into a crisis at least partly because so much remained unknown as events were unfolding-including the potential magnitude of ecological and human impacts-yet a large population close to the Chesapeake Bay perceived that these impacts could be widespread.

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The Chesapeake Bay Barometer is a monthly eenvironmental publication of the federal/state Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP). The Barometer depicts the current water quality of the Bay in terms of water clarity and dissolved oxygen. Additionally, each Bay Barometer highlights a different issue or problem concerning the dynamics or historyof the Bay and its surrounding lands. The Chesapeake Bay Program the Bay Barometer because no other publication was providing Bay water quality information to the public in a timely fashion.

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Submersed aquatic vegetation is comprised of rooted flowering plants that have colonized primarily soft sediment habitats in coastal, esturine, and freshwater habitats. In Chesapeake Bay, seagrasses in saline regions and freshwater angiosperms that have colonized lower-salinity portions of the estuary constitute a diverse (Approximately 20 species) community of submersersed aquatic vegetation (collectively as SAV; Hurley 1990). Seagrasses are typically defined as the approximately 60 species of marine angiosperms (den Hartog, 1970); however respreantatives of the several hundred species of freshwater macrophytes are often found in estuarine habitats (Hutchinson 1975). For the purpose of this article, the term submersed aquatic vegetation is used for both marine angiosperms and freshwater nmacrophytes that are found in Chesapeake Bay.

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This workshop was convened to address the needs and the potential for long-term research on the Chesapeake Bay in support of living resources management. Scientists from several disciplines participated, coming from all regions of the United States and from Europe to meet for three days at the Donald-Brown Conference Center. Results of their discussion and recommendations are included in this report. The report is intended as a planning guide for long-range research, from which specific research programs can be developed. Further effort by small working groups of scientists and managers will be required to develop the general recommendations made here into specific research or monitoring programs. In addition to the 48 scientists, many agency and academic representatives participate in the general sessions on the first and third days of the workshop. The report primarily provides recommendations on long-range needs by the scientists to agency managers, but its content has been influenced substatially by input of all participants in the general sessions.

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To help increase our understanding of the impacts of forest fragmentation, the USDA Forest Service and the Society of American Foresters organized and sponsored this Round Table series in partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Program. Its primary objective was to hear from the scientists and experts in the field about how forest fragmentation and landownership parcelization may be affecting out forests. In all there were 38 participants from universities, state and federal agencies, and private and nonprofit entities, with expertise in disciplines including landscape ecology, wildlife biology, forest ecology, economics, sociology, land-use planning, policy analysis, and law. The main goals of the series were: 1) to gain a better understanding of the "state of the science" related to forest fragmentation and its impacts' 2) to gather insights, opinion, and recomendation from the experts; and 3) to gain consensus on what we know, what we do not know, and what we still need to learn about forest fragmentation.

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An evaluation of the ecological significance of the patterns of Chesapeake ichthyoplankton can only be made by correlating biological data with the estuarine environment. Since an estuary is characterized by salt concentration gradient to which fish are known to respond, the salinity gradient appears tobe the logical link between the biological data and the environment. The variation in the salinity gradient from year to year, as a result of varying freshwater input, precludes the assignment of a fixed salinity value for a given geographical location. The validity of the major conclusions drawn in this report is subject to the acceptance of the salinity gradient as an adequate yardstick for the estuary.

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