Session Lead: Lewis Linker
Session Co-lead: Joseph Zhang, VIMS, Jesse Bash, EPA, Peter Claggett, USGS, Gopal Bhatt, Penn State, Gary Shenk, USGS, Carl Cerco, Attain
Session Format: Oral presentations
Abstract:
The session examines the emergence of high-resolution data, monitoring, modeling, and statistical analyses of nested scales as critical building blocks of next generation management models. Topics covered include aspects of the unprecedented scale available in the next generation models/data for land cover, airshed, watershed, and estuary simulations of the Chesapeake region, and how they can be leveraged together for better understanding and advancing targeted management decisions.
Ongoing advances in computational power, data availability, and most importantly, the interest of decision makers to resolve pollution management at local scales are driving the need for higher spatial resolution models and analyses. The increased spatial detail will generate new approaches in model development and calibration that will rely to a greater extent on big data and machine learning approaches. 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.