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 scientific institutions around the watershed.

STAC held its fourth quarterly meeting of FY2017 on March 13-14, 2018 at the DoubleTree Hotel in Annapolis, MD.  The meeting featured presentations and discussion on several STAC business items, including updates from recent meetings of the CBP’s Principal’s Staff Committee (PSC), approving revised Bylaws, and the selection of workshop proposals for funding in the FY2018 budget cycle.  The meeting also featured report-outs from STAC and CBP representatives on recent STAC reviews for the Partnership’s 2017 Midpoint Assessment. Presentations and more information can be found on the meeting webpage.  STAC will host the first quarterly meeting of FY2018 via webinar on June 20, 2018.

STAC has hosted one workshop over the last quarter.  On April 25-26 2017, STAC hosted a workshop titled “Factors Influencing Fish Habitat Function in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed: Application to Restoration and Management Decisions” in Richmond, VA.  Presentations and more information can be found on the workshop webpage.

STAC will be sponsoring the following 5 workshops in FY2018:

  1. Chesapeake Bay Program Climate Change Modeling 2.0
  2. Establishment of Multifunctional Riparian Barriers: How do we accelerate the path to 95,000+ acres with the greatest economic, social, and environmental impact?
  3. Integrating Science and Developing Approaches to Inform Management for Contaminants of Concern in Agricultural Settings
  4. Assessing the Environment in Outcome Units (AEIOU): Using Eutrophying Units for Management
  5. Microplastics in the Chesapeake Bay and its Watershed: State of the Knowledge, Data Gaps, and Relationship to Management Goals

 

Several workshop steering committees are in the process of drafting activity reports and other workshop outcomes that will be distributed to the Partnership over the next few months.  For more information regarding recently published and upcoming STAC workshop reports, visit the STAC past workshop webpage.  Information regarding recent and upcoming STAC workshops is posted when available on the STAC current workshop homepage.

STAC has released (4) reports over the last quarter outlining the findings and recommendations of recent workshops and technical reviews:

  1. CBP Partnership’s Climate Change Assessment Framework and Programmatic Integration and Response Efforts (Review)
  2. Chesapeake Bay Water Quality/Sediment Transport Model (WQSTM) (Review)
  3. Consideration of BMP Performance Uncertainty in Chesapeake Bay Program Implementation (Workshop)
  4. Monitoring and Assessing Impacts of Changes in Weather Patterns and Extreme Events on BMP Siting and Design (Workshop)

 

With these final two review reports, STAC has completed its series of 8 independent peer reviews to help inform the Partnership’s 2017 Mid-point Assessment, and the CBP’s evolving suite of modeling and management tools.  A complete list of the review requests, links to relevant documentation/review materials, reports, and CBP responses (as available) can be found on the STAC review homepage.