Session Lead: Marjy Friedrichs (VIMS)

Co-Lead(s): Fei Da (VIMS)

Session Format: Oral presentations

Session Description: 

This session invites presentations describing environmental stressors in Chesapeake Bay impeding the Bay’s restoration at present and into the future. Stressors include long term trends in water quality metrics such as dissolved oxygen, eutrophication, hydrographic variability, the occurrence of harmful algal blooms, rising water temperatures, sea level rise and coastal flooding, and estuarine acidification. Rising water temperatures and sea level, acidification, and changes in hydrological and meteorological patterns profoundly impact coupled physical, biogeochemical, and ecological systems and interact to produce additional stressors such as hypoxic waters and harmful algal blooms. This session is intended to provide a forum for assessing our current understanding of these stressors, and implications for Chesapeake Bay ecosystem structure and function into the future. We encourage presentations that include modeling and observational studies of environmental change in Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, impacts on Bay ecosystems, and projections of future states for Chesapeake Bay. We also encourage studies that provide assessments of long-term historical and observational data of these stressors collected in the Bay. 

Presenters:

Kendall Wnuk – Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Algal Bloom Occurrence in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays using Historical Landsat Data

Michael Echevarria – A simple assessment of temperature and salinity on the interannual variability Margalefidinium polykrikoides blooms in the lower James River

Eduardo Pere-Vega – The effect of temperature and light on the growth dynamics of the harmful dinoflagellate Margalefidinium polykrikoides

Eileen Hofmann – Understanding Controls on Margalef Didinium polykrikoides Blooms in the Lower Chesapeake Bay

Jilian Xiong – Biophysical interactions control the progression of harmful algal blooms: a novel Lagrangian particle tracking model with algae dynamics and behaviors

Margaret Mulholland – Summertime heat waves in the lower Chesapeake Bay and their effects on blooms of Margalefidinium polykrikoides

Kimberly Reece – Impacts of late summer blooms in the lower Chesapeake Bay

Barnett Rattner – Harmful Algal Blooms and Implications for Wildlife in the Chesapeake Bay Region

Dante Horemans – Predicting harmful algal blooms in the Chesapeake Bay using empirical habitat models

Fei Da – Controls on the carbonate system of the York River Estuary

Catherine Czajka – Impacts of future climate change on Chesapeake Bay carbonate chemistry and oyster growth