Session Lead: Raleigh Hood, DG Webster, Gary Shenk

Co-Lead(s): Patrick Bitterman, Victoria Coles, Peter Claggett, Frederick W. Ducca, Sevgi Erdogan

Session Format: Oral presentations

Session Description:

The grand challenges confronting management and decision making in the Chesapeake Bay airshed, watershed and estuary regions result from the interaction of humans with their environment. Commercial and recreational fisheries, agricultural and energy production practices, population growth and land use change all impact the health and resilience of the land and water systems that together comprise the Chesapeake Bay socio-environmental system. In turn, the health and quality of the environment affect decision-making at multiple scales – from individuals up through the state and federal levels. Despite this critical nexus of interacting issues, coupling social, economic, policy and governance models with environmental modeling to assess the impact of strategic management and policy actions remains challenging and elusive. This session invites research relevant to conceptual, theoretical or numerical models of environmental and human systems to understand their combined impact or that identifies gaps and challenges hindering the integration of human and natural systems.

Presenters: 

D.G. Webster – Precursors to governance in the Chesapeake River Basin

Patrick Bitterman – Patterns of Best Management Practices and Local Contextual Factors Across the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Labeeb Ahmed – Chesapeake Bay Land Change Model (CBLCM): A Stochastic Land Use Change Model

David Abler – Linking Models of Environmental and Human Systems in the Thriving Ag Project

Scott Knoche – A Travel Cost Recreation Demand Model Examining the Economic Benefits of Acid Mine Drainage Remediation to Maryland Trout Anglers

Tan Zou – Sustainable Nutrient Management across Systems and Spatial Scales

Lara Fowler – Water for Agriculture: Engaging Locally to Frame and Find a Path Forward Together

Lee Aherm – Protecting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed in Pennsylvania: Media Frames and Stakeholder Perspectives

Elizabeth North – Two tests of the Consensus Solutions process with collaborative modeling for management of Maryland’s contentious oyster fishery