Restoring Positivity: Chesapeake Bay Watershed Success Stories The restoration of the Chesapeake Bay has been and will continue to be a herculean effort by many, and the work ahead of us often overshadows the successes to date. Pausing to celebrate our successes reminds us all how far we have come and is a learning [...]
Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Advance Chesapeake Bay Research and Management The Chesapeake Bay is globally recognized for its long-term, science-based restoration effort, but informed decision making across the seven jurisdictions of the watershed requires a lot of data and modeling. Artificial intelligence (AI) and associated machine learning (ML) applications have emerged as powerful tools [...]
Data from the 2017-18 annual Winter Dredge Survey collected by Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MD DNR) and Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) were analyzed by the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee (CBSAC) and compiled in the 2018 Blue Crab Advisory Report. CBSAC reported that based on current estimates of abundance (below) and exploitation, the blue [...]
Atlantic sturgeon (NOAA) In Fall of 2017, a field team from the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office (NCBO) did some interesting work mapping critical habitat for endangered Atlantic sturgeon in Virginia. The team has captured side-scan sonar images of 13 sturgeon that were observed during a survey of a 5-km long section of the James River. During this exercise, the [...]
The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office (NCBO) has recently announced the grantees that will receive FY2017 funding through the NCBO Fisheries Research Program. Having heard from the management and scientific community that more knowledge is needed regarding the Chesapeake Bay’s forage base, the FY17 program solicited proposals to characterize habitat quantity and quality for forage species, or [...]
The Chesapeake Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) is administered by the CRC and funded through a cooperative agreement with the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) Partnership – currently spanning the period 2016-2022. The CRC has had a long-standing role of administering all activities of STAC, an active committee with 38 members from academic and [...]
Photo courtesy of CCRM/VIMS The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Coastal Management recently awarded a nearly $835,000 Coastal Resilience Grant to the Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM) at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS). The award is matched by existing funds from partners at VIMS, the College of William & [...]
Adapt Virginia portal The Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM) at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) recently launched their Adapt Virginia portal. The portal provides a one-stop shop of evidence-based planning tools and resources to respond to changing climate conditions. Adapt Virginia currently provides forecasts, adaptation case studies, risk assessment and guidance [...]
Wastewater Treatment Plant at PSU Researchers at Penn State University studied the effectiveness of wastewater treatment by tracking the fate of different contaminants. Their goal was to track the compounds through wastewater treatment and at the wells at their Living Filter, a place where treated water is sprayed to undergo additional filtration. The contaminants tracked were [...]
Photo courtesy PennState & Penn State News Penn State News– Researchers from Penn State University (PSU) are leading a team to study a new flexible strategy to ramp up installation of riparian buffers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) awarded the group that includes several PSU researchers across multiple disciplines, along with a USDA [...]
