Water Quality Goal Implementation Team (GIT 3) Publications

Creation of the Nutrient and Scenario Builder tool was achieved with the excellent assistance of the Chesapeake Bay Program Information Technology contractor’s team led by Jessica Rigelman. With her leadership, Jonathan Lewis, Robert Weiss, Mark Lane, and Aaron Knister built a complex functional software product under a very tight deadline. Their questions along the way helped to strengthen the methodology. Without Jessica Rigelman’s encouragement of all of us, this project would not have been accomplished.

Input from nutrient management planners and farmers were valuable to making sure that the methods followed on-the-ground practices as much as possible. I particular appreciate Patricia Steinhilber sharing her in-depth knowledge of relevant literature, both recent and old. She also provided a paradigm for thinking about the issues from a farm scale while modeling on a county scale. Jerry Lemunyon and Robert Kellogg of NRCS shared their approach on the CEAP project. The methods they developed for CEAP were regularly consulted as I determined what was required for these analyses.

The members and coordinators of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Watershed Technical Workgroup and Agricultural Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Workgroups gave valuable comments that strengthened both the base data and the methodology. David Hansen, Chair of the Nutrient Subcommittee, was always available and willing to provide necessary assistance.

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The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) Water Quality Goal Implementation Team (WQGIT) supports the commitments of the CBP partnership to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution loads in order to achieve water-quality standards in the tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Many WQGIT activities relate to implementing the accountability framework within the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load for Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Sediment (Bay TMDL), which draws significantly on adaptive -management principles and was informed by numerous decisions of the WQGIT, its workgroups, and its CBP predecessors (Water Quality Steering Committee, Nutrient Subcommittee).

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