Developing Environmental Indicators for Assessing the Health of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

To address the GAO?s request for the implementation of an integrated assessment approach and an improved reporting approach, the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) has focused on revising its environmental indicators to address four key areas of concern: (1) bay and watershed ‘stressors,’ (2) restoration activities, (3) the health of the bay, and (4) the health of the watershed. The CBP successfully targeted indicator development for areas 1-3, but lacked adequate science-based indicators for assessing the health of the watershed. STAC and the CBP Monitoring and Analysis Subcommittee teamed up to host a workshop to address these needs. 30 plus regional experts were convened to identify watershed indicators and associated stressors for three principle topics: water quality, habitat, and living resources. Recommendations, which are summarized in the workshop report, provide direction on the types of environmental indicators that should be used to assess the health of the Bay watershed, and indication of critical information gaps and monitoring needed to produce these indicators.