Major Climate Change Research Synthesis Kicks Off in the Chesapeake
Climate change continues to complicate how models of the Chesapeake Bay predict the future. The Chesapeake Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) recently began a program to support scientists grappling with these uncertainties by funding short scientific syntheses around climate change issues in the Chesapeake Bay.
This year, STAC funded two of these syntheses. Zachary Easton of Virginia Tech will lead a science synthesis on the effects of climate change on best management practice (BMP) efficiency, specifically around nutrient and sediment cycling. Jeremy Testa of University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) will investigate dissolved oxygen dynamics in shallow water habitats and the precursors to hypoxia.
Zach Easton: Understanding Uncertainties in Pollutant Cycling and BMP Performance
Easton will lead a multi-institutional steering committee of researchers to understand how climate change affects nutrient and sediment cycling in the Bay, mechanisms that affect the performance of U.S. EPA approved Best Management Practices (BMPs), how climate change affects BMPs and exacerbates uncertainties, and identifying BMPs that will result in the best water quality outcomes under climate uncertainty.
Easton and a steering committee will oversee the synthesis, which is to be primarily conducted by Emily Bock, a postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Tech who has focused her graduate research on water quality issues in the Bay and BMP performance. Also on the steering committee is Raymond Najjar of Penn State, a climatologist with expertise in climate oceanography; Julie Shortridge of Virginia Tech, who studies risk assessment in water resources; Kurt Stephenson of Virginia Tech, who focuses on the economics around BMPs; and Lisa Wainger of UMCES, who studies economics around BMPs as well as policy.
The team is interested in understanding how climate change will affect uncertainty in the Bay model, particularly around BMP performance. “We’ll be looking at BMPs that are adapted to a wide range of scenarios, not just BMPs that perform well under a certain climate change scenario,” explained Bock.
BMPs that perform well under one scenario might prove to be maladaptive under other scenarios. For example, the no-till BMP might perform well under some climate change scenarios, but overall, it may not be the best BMP to reduce erosion given projected changes to future precipitation in the region. So the team will look at a wide range of BMPs to find ones that perform well under many scenarios.
During the initial phase of the project, the team will formalize the synthesis review protocol, working with a research librarian at Virginia Tech to guide their work. They are finalizing their methods for their literature review now and hope to officially begin before Thanksgiving. Through extensive data collection and analysis over the next year, the team will develop the synthesis report for STAC and the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP).
Easton predicts their review will produce conclusions in three components: how nutrient and sediment cycling affects BMPs, how BMPs respond to loads under different conditions, and how management decisions will affect water quality in the Bay. “We will characterize the most pressing gaps in the knowledge related to climate change effects on nutrient cycles and BMP performance, then propose an avenue of research to address those gaps,” explained Easton.
Easton and Bock will also communicate their findings to the Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) coordinators as well as their local extension program. “We are working with many local partners in several capacities to distribute conclusions to relevant stakeholders,” explained Easton.
“We aim to strengthen the foundation for evaluating tradeoffs between different management decisions and BMPs and a range of possible water quality outcomes,” said Bock. Easton added, “Getting a handle on BMP uncertainty and how climate change influences uncertainty will help to ensure we meet the water quality goals for the Bay.”
Jeremy Testa: The Effects of Climate Change on Dissolved Oxygen in Shallow Waters
Dissolved oxygen dynamics, including the role of climate change, in deep mainstem areas are generally better understood than those in shallow water environments.
Hypoxic conditions can develop quickly, even overnight, in shallow waters, where many Bay organisms reside. The team, led by Jeremy Testa and Damian Brady, will review dissolved oxygen data in shallow waters to gain a better understanding of oxygen dynamics in these areas.
The science synthesis will include analyzing data from the continuous monitoring (ConMon) program in Maryland, Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System (CBIBS), National Estuarine Research Reserve Systems (NERRS), and Virginia DEQ stations.
Their analysis will be completed in three stages: first, they will use models to predict DO concentrations and habitat impacts. Then they will use existing nutrient and climate change simulations to understand how changing inputs affect shallow water DO dynamics. Finally, they will create spatial maps of fish habitat suitability and generate uncertainty estimates.
The team’s steering committee will be led by Jeremy Testa of UMCES, who has over a decade of experience analyzing Bay water quality data. The analysis will be completed by postdoctoral scholar Wei Liu, who currently works with co-PI Damian Brady of the University of Maine. Brady has expertise in biogeochemical modeling and hypoxia.
The steering committee also includes Denise Breitburg of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), who studies the effects of hypoxia and acidification on Bay organisms; Walter Boynton of UMCES, who has co-developed many of the tools proposed in the synthesis; Ming Li of UMCES, who has extensive numerical modeling experience; Mark Trice of Maryland DNR, who is engaged in water quality monitoring; and Lisa Wainger of UMCES, a long-time prior STAC member and former STAC chair who studies the economic implications of total maximum daily load (TMDL) implementation.
The Science Synthesis Funding Process
STAC regularly holds workshops and conducts major technical peer reviews of CBP activities that cover broad topics and provide science-based recommendations back to CBP. In order to address more complex issues that have come up during reviews and workshops, STAC initiated this dedicated effort to review existing research, identify research gaps, and develop means of filling them.
These science syntheses will provide a valuable “state-of-science” understanding for Bay managers. This year, 10 proposals were evaluated by a STAC subcommittee, leading to Easton and Testa’s selection.
Both teams will be expected to produce final reports for STAC and at least one published paper. They will also report to STAC, CRC, and CBP upon request, likely on a quarterly basis. Then, STAC will work closely with the CBP partnerhsip’s communications team to communicate their findings through theCBP’s blog and through the institutions involved with the syntheses.
In the future, the projects’ findings could be used to pursue additional grant funding from NSF or other agencies to fill in the research gaps identified.
“The climate change science synthesis topic is important because it crosses all goals and outcomes in the Bay Program,” explained Annabelle Harvey, STAC coordinator. “It’s an opportunity to take a deep dive into what we don’t know yet and get closer to meeting the goals in 2025.”