Session Lead: Lewis Linker, EPA Chesapeake Bay Program Office

Co-Lead(s): Joseph Zhang, VIMS; Jesse Bash, EPA-ORD; Peter Claggett, USGS; Gopal Bhatt, Penn State; Gary Shenk, USGS; Isabella Bertani, UMCES

Session Format: Oral and poster presentations

Session Description:

Advances in computational power, data availability, and the interest of decision makers to resolve pollution management problems at local scales are driving the need for higher spatial resolution models and analyses in the Chesapeake.  The ongoing progress being made in the development of spatial high-resolution next-generation models of the Chesapeake watershed, airshed, and tidal waters will be surveyed.  The emergence of high-resolution data, monitoring, modeling, and statistical analyses will be the critical building blocks of the next generation of Chesapeake Bay Program management models that will integrate multiple local TMDLs with the Chesapeake TMDL while providing forward looking insights in the management of climate change challenges in the region.  Session topics covered include aspects of the improved scale available in next generation models and data for land use, airshed, watershed, and estuary simulations of the Chesapeake region, and how they will be leveraged together for better understanding and advancing targeted local and Chesapeake Bay wide management decisions.

The increased spatial detail is generating new approaches in model development and calibration that will rely to a greater extent on big data and machine learning approaches. For example, the CBP Partners are developing 1:2000-scale hydrography data coupled with one-meter spatial resolution land use and land use change datasets with over 60 different land classes for the years 2013, 2017, 2021.  Furthermore, the next generation models will need to be capable of ecosystem simulations beyond the current basic estuarine habitat requirements quantified by the Chesapeake water quality standards of dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, and water clarity to better support ecological decision making in the watershed rivers and estuary.

However, challenges remain for developing, running, and analyzing models of large watershed and estuarine systems at fine resolutions.  Additionally, effective approaches of interpreting and communicating the fine scale outputs of complex model scenarios, from decision/policy making to implementation scales, presents considerable challenges.

The session provides a forum for ongoing dialog and collaborations to develop and establish best available science and methods for the building blocks of fine scale modeling in the Chesapeake airshed, watershed, and estuary.  The session invites research on these wide-ranging topics, including prototype examples of different scales and an examination of critical data resources and innovative statistical analyses for supporting next generation models.

Presenters:

Gary Shenk – Planning for Next Generation Models and Analysis Tools for the Chesapeake Bay TMDL

Peter Claggett – One-meter Resolution Land Use/Cover for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Sarah McDonald – Mapping One-Meter Resolution Land Use Change

Michael Evans – Mapping the Chesapeake with AI

Matthew Baker – Development of scalable, hyper-resolution, geomorphic hydrography products and their management implications across the Chesapeake Bay watershed

Labeeb Ahmed – Mapping Stream and Floodplain Geomorphic Characteristics with Floodplain and Channel Evaluation Tool (FACET)

Marina Metes – Locating and characterizing headwater streams using lidar-derived topographic metrics

Nancy Roth – Implementing Healthy Watersheds Assessment for Maryland Tier II Waters

Gopal Bhatt – Development of a fine-scale spatially distributed Phase 7 Chesapeake Bay watershed model

Isabella Bertani – Towards the development of a parsimonious Bayesian model to explore drivers of spatial variability in nutrient loads in the Chesapeake Bay watershed

Abolfazl Ansari – High-Resolution Flood Modeling at regional scale in Susquehanna River Basin

Lew Linker – Next Generation Multi-Scale Models of the Chesapeake Watershed and Estuary – Exploring Future Challenges of Climate Change and Growth

Joseph Zhang –Development of Phase 7 Estuarine Model for CBP

Zhengui Wang – Development of the next-generation Water Quality Model SCHISM-ICM

Nicole Cai – Development of a Next-Generation Tributary Model in the tidal James River

Linlin Cui – A dynamic web application to visualize Main Bay Model outputs

Richard Tian – Simulation of shallow water high-frequency dynamics of water quality in the Corsica River, Chesapeake Bay

Aaron Bever – Effects of the resolution of model inputs on real-time environmental forecasting