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USGS and CBP produce report to enhance Chesapeake Bay and watershed monitoring networks

Completed
By Chesapeake Bay Activities December 7, 2022

Issue: In March 2021, the Principals’ Staff Committee (PSC) requested a study and recommendations on how to enhance the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) monitoring networks to improve decision-making for the goals of the Chesapeake Watershed Agreement.  The monitoring networks include (1) CBP core networks supported primarily by EPA CBP funding (i.e., Tidal Water Quality, Nontidal Water Quality, Submerged Aquatic Vegetation, Tidal benthic macroinvertebrates, Community Science, and Land Use Land Cover), and (2) partnership networks supported by multiple federal and state agencies. 
 

4 puzzle pieces to represent CBP's monitoring efforts
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Figure 1. Existing Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) water quality monitoring networks and new monitoring needed to address the CBP Watershed Agreement Outcomes (CBP. 2014. Watershed Agreement). The top row illustrates existing monitoring efforts including the CBP core networks and partner-led monitoring to address CBP Watershed Agreement outcomes. The bottom row represents new monitoring needs that can be addressed by enhancing the CBP core networks or developing new networks for CBP Watershed Agreement outcomes without sufficient monitoring.

The Monitoring Review

The monitoring review was guided by leadership from the CBP Scientific, Technical Assessment and Reporting (STAR) team, the CBP Monitoring Team, with input from the CBP Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) leadership. The effort had significant USGS involvement including Peter Tango (CBP Monitoring Coordinator), Breck Sullivan (STAR coordinator) and Scott Phillips (STAR cochair), working closely with Lee McDonell (EPA CBP Science Branch Coordinator), Denice Wardrop (Chesapeake Research Consortium Executive Director), and Amy Goldfischer of CRC. 

The review team interacted with all the CBP Goal Implementation Teams to gather their monitoring needs related to the outcomes in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. The review included how to sustain existing CBP and partner-led networks, enhance the CBP networks, and establish additional ones to address the outcomes the Watershed agreement (Figure 1). 

The report “Enhancing the Chesapeake Bay Program Monitoring Networks, A Report to the Principals’ Staff Committee” has 4 sections: 

  • Section 1: Chesapeake Bay Program Core Network Portfolio summaries 
  • Section 2: Monitoring needs for all 2014 Chesapeake Bay Agreement Goals and Outcomes
  • Section 3: Partnership Opportunities to Enhance Chesapeake Bay Program Monitoring 
  • Section 4: Principals’ Staff Committee Charge to the Monitoring Review Team and foundational network assessment results 

 

Key Findings

  1. Monitoring is critical to assess progress towards meeting goals and outcomes of the 2014 Watershed Agreement. Sustained and improved monitoring will allow the CBP partners to assess and evaluate progress from restoration and conservation efforts, while identifying gaps where more attention is needed in the future.
  2. Monitoring is insufficient for many CBP outcomes. There is significant support for Bay and watershed resource monitoring, conducted by multiple CBP partners, which provides consistent information over time for tracking the status of, and progress towards about half of the 31 CBP Watershed Agreement outcomes. However, the review highlights a need for new investments to address significant gaps in providing decision-support for existing applications. This includes CBP’s inability to meet all the monitoring requirements to fully assess the attainment of tidal water-quality standards associated with the Bay TMDL. Further, monitoring for the remaining CBP outcomes is insufficient and needs to be improved. Improvement is urgently needed by 2025 to achieve stated outcomes.
  3. Opportunities for enhancing the networks exist but funding is a challenge. Funding is needed to maintain the integrity of existing monitoring networks, expand, and enhance these networks, and invest in new monitoring opportunities that address critical gaps to assess progress toward the meeting targets of all CBP Watershed Agreement outcomes. Currently, the EPA and partners invest $13M in the CBP core monitoring networks.

Pursuing funds for monitoring investments will require a long-term, strategic effort of increased collaboration between federal, state, academic and local monitoring partners to successfully maintain and enhance existing networks, and develop, establish, and sustain new networks. The CBP partners have a challenge to increase monitoring capacity and associated resources to fill short-term funding gaps and identity longer-term sources of funding that sustain the existing and new capacity. 

 

Moving Forward: Implementation Steps

The CBP plans to have an initial meeting of monitoring program managers in 2023 to:  

  1. provide a review of report recommendations on the priority monitoring needs, 
  2. present the status of investment in addressing the recommendations, and 
  3. provide time for identifying opportunities for supporting monitoring investments that align with their interests, leading to actions that enhance data collection capacity of existing CBP core networks. 

Continued discussions will be conducted at regular meetings organized through the STAR Integrated Monitoring Networks Workgroup (IMN WG). Establishing new monitoring networks to support outcomes in the Watershed Agreement lacking in sufficient data or coordination will likely require initial collaboration between the STAR IMN WG and the CBP workgroup responsible for assessing status and tracking progress toward achieving the outcome before presentation to program managers regarding any remaining gaps in their capacity support.

 

For more information

Read the report: Enhancing the Chesapeake Bay Program Monitoring Networks, A Report to the Principals’ Staff Committee

Peter Tango, CBP email: ptango@chesapeakebay.net

Breck Sullivan, CBP email bsullivan@chesapeakebay.net

Issue: In March 2021, the Principals’ Staff Committee (PSC) requested a study and recommendations on how to enhance the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) monitoring networks to improve decision-making for the goals of the Chesapeake Watershed Agreement.  The monitoring networks include (1) CBP core networks supported primarily by EPA CBP funding (i.e., Tidal Water Quality, Nontidal Water Quality, Submerged Aquatic Vegetation, Tidal benthic macroinvertebrates, Community Science, and Land Use Land Cover), and (2) partnership networks supported by multiple federal and state agencies. 
 

4 puzzle pieces to represent CBP's monitoring efforts
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Figure 1. Existing Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) water quality monitoring networks and new monitoring needed to address the CBP Watershed Agreement Outcomes (CBP. 2014. Watershed Agreement). The top row illustrates existing monitoring efforts including the CBP core networks and partner-led monitoring to address CBP Watershed Agreement outcomes. The bottom row represents new monitoring needs that can be addressed by enhancing the CBP core networks or developing new networks for CBP Watershed Agreement outcomes without sufficient monitoring.

The Monitoring Review

The monitoring review was guided by leadership from the CBP Scientific, Technical Assessment and Reporting (STAR) team, the CBP Monitoring Team, with input from the CBP Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) leadership. The effort had significant USGS involvement including Peter Tango (CBP Monitoring Coordinator), Breck Sullivan (STAR coordinator) and Scott Phillips (STAR cochair), working closely with Lee McDonell (EPA CBP Science Branch Coordinator), Denice Wardrop (Chesapeake Research Consortium Executive Director), and Amy Goldfischer of CRC. 

The review team interacted with all the CBP Goal Implementation Teams to gather their monitoring needs related to the outcomes in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. The review included how to sustain existing CBP and partner-led networks, enhance the CBP networks, and establish additional ones to address the outcomes the Watershed agreement (Figure 1). 

The report “Enhancing the Chesapeake Bay Program Monitoring Networks, A Report to the Principals’ Staff Committee” has 4 sections: 

  • Section 1: Chesapeake Bay Program Core Network Portfolio summaries 
  • Section 2: Monitoring needs for all 2014 Chesapeake Bay Agreement Goals and Outcomes
  • Section 3: Partnership Opportunities to Enhance Chesapeake Bay Program Monitoring 
  • Section 4: Principals’ Staff Committee Charge to the Monitoring Review Team and foundational network assessment results 

 

Key Findings

  1. Monitoring is critical to assess progress towards meeting goals and outcomes of the 2014 Watershed Agreement. Sustained and improved monitoring will allow the CBP partners to assess and evaluate progress from restoration and conservation efforts, while identifying gaps where more attention is needed in the future.
  2. Monitoring is insufficient for many CBP outcomes. There is significant support for Bay and watershed resource monitoring, conducted by multiple CBP partners, which provides consistent information over time for tracking the status of, and progress towards about half of the 31 CBP Watershed Agreement outcomes. However, the review highlights a need for new investments to address significant gaps in providing decision-support for existing applications. This includes CBP’s inability to meet all the monitoring requirements to fully assess the attainment of tidal water-quality standards associated with the Bay TMDL. Further, monitoring for the remaining CBP outcomes is insufficient and needs to be improved. Improvement is urgently needed by 2025 to achieve stated outcomes.
  3. Opportunities for enhancing the networks exist but funding is a challenge. Funding is needed to maintain the integrity of existing monitoring networks, expand, and enhance these networks, and invest in new monitoring opportunities that address critical gaps to assess progress toward the meeting targets of all CBP Watershed Agreement outcomes. Currently, the EPA and partners invest $13M in the CBP core monitoring networks.

Pursuing funds for monitoring investments will require a long-term, strategic effort of increased collaboration between federal, state, academic and local monitoring partners to successfully maintain and enhance existing networks, and develop, establish, and sustain new networks. The CBP partners have a challenge to increase monitoring capacity and associated resources to fill short-term funding gaps and identity longer-term sources of funding that sustain the existing and new capacity. 

 

Moving Forward: Implementation Steps

The CBP plans to have an initial meeting of monitoring program managers in 2023 to:  

  1. provide a review of report recommendations on the priority monitoring needs, 
  2. present the status of investment in addressing the recommendations, and 
  3. provide time for identifying opportunities for supporting monitoring investments that align with their interests, leading to actions that enhance data collection capacity of existing CBP core networks. 

Continued discussions will be conducted at regular meetings organized through the STAR Integrated Monitoring Networks Workgroup (IMN WG). Establishing new monitoring networks to support outcomes in the Watershed Agreement lacking in sufficient data or coordination will likely require initial collaboration between the STAR IMN WG and the CBP workgroup responsible for assessing status and tracking progress toward achieving the outcome before presentation to program managers regarding any remaining gaps in their capacity support.

 

For more information

Read the report: Enhancing the Chesapeake Bay Program Monitoring Networks, A Report to the Principals’ Staff Committee

Peter Tango, CBP email: ptango@chesapeakebay.net

Breck Sullivan, CBP email bsullivan@chesapeakebay.net