The 2018 Chesapeake Community Research and Modeling Symposium (ChesRMS18) was convened June 12-14 at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Annapolis, MD. By all accounts the meeting was an overwhelming success with the number of participants more than doubled compared to the 2016 meeting. This increase was the result of the CCMP and CRC decision to expand the meeting to include both the modeling and observational research communities in the Chesapeake Bay region, combined with redoubled advertising efforts. This increase in participation had a very positive impact on the meeting, with the plenary presentations, panel discussions and parallel sessions packed with enthusiastic scientists and managers. Thanks in part to funding from NSF, graduate student participation was also significantly increased.
Picture from the first day of the symposium. See Flickr for more. Taken by Dave Jasinski.
The meeting was kicked off with plenary presentations on day 1 by Marjy Friedrichs, Jason Fleming and Rich Batiuk. These were all outstanding presentations, capped by Rich Batiuk’s review of the Bay Program’s successful efforts to use science as the foundation for collaborative bay and watershed restoration. Rich’s presentation was particularly timely and poingnant given his subsequent retirement in July after three decades guiding the Bay Program’s Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts. The afternoon of day 1 was dedicated to four exciting parallel sessions followed by a reception, poster session and presentation of the “Guardian Award” to Carl Cerco in recognition of his more than 30 years of effort to “get the models right” for setting Chesapeake Bay TMDLs.
The morning of the second day of the meeting was dedicated to panel presentations and discussion on two topics. The first was focused on research to address contaminants of emerging concern for the Chesapeake region moderated by Scott Phillips with panelists Greg Allen, Vicki Blazer, Lee Blaney and Heather Gall. And the second was focused on seagrass recovery in Chesapeake Bay moderated by Larry Sanford with panelists Bill Dennison, JJ Orth, Cassie Gurbisz and Jonathan Lefcheck. Both were highly entertaining and informative, ending on a super positive message of emerging signs of seagrass recovery in response to the Bay Program’s restoration efforts. The afternoon was dedicated to another set of four exciting parallel sessions followed by another reception and poster session.
The morning of the final day of the meeting was dedicated to a third set of engaging parallel sessions that were capped off by a panel presentation and discussion on modeling climate change consequences for the phase III watershed implementation plans. This panel was organized and moderated by Don Boesch, with panelists Lew Linker, Lee Currey, Zach Easton, Maria Herrmann and Ray Najjar. This was, yet another, highly informative and entertaining panel aimed at helping the Bay Program with its efforts to make sure that the partnership models are properly formulated to realistically represent climate change.
The ChesRMS18 meeting was organized by the Chesapeake Community Modeling Program (CCMP) and sponsored by the Chesapeake Research Consortium (CRC), NOAA, and NSF. Meeting logistics were handled by Green Fin Studio. For more information about the meeting, including plenary speaker and panelist biographies and abstracts, parallel session titles and presentation titles see our program PDF.