| Abstract: |
In the Chesapeake Bay region, stakeholders are required to meet Federal mandates and make management decisions that will improve the water quality and health of the Bay ecosystem. These decisions are commonly made on criteria such as economic cost and opportunities to implement management actions. Often, actions are not targeted in areas that would provide the greatest environmental benefit. To help facilitate stakeholders in making decisions based on environmental improvement, the Chesapeake Online Adaptive Support Toolkit (COAST) was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program Office (CBPO). The COAST website design uses an adaptive-management framework to provide access to a diverse suite of model results, monitoring data, and supporting information to help managers better target, implement, and assess the effectiveness of their activities. By utilizing an adaptive-management framework, COAST emphasizes the opportunity for improved management as more is learned about the ecosystem over time. Informational content and web map decision support tools on water quality have been organized and grouped on the COAST website into customized adaptive-management steps, based on structured decision making, to help stakeholders better utilize scientific information in their decision- making process. Thus far, COAST has been used in at least one instance to better focus actions to improve water quality in the Bay. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the USGS, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) used COAST to focus 2008 Farm Bill funding in areas delivering the highest nutrient loads to the Chesapeake Bay. COAST is also being applied to identify forested areas that should be conserved in the Bay watershed because of their water-quality benefits. This talk will discuss COAST and its adaptive-management structure and summarize the successes and challenges encountered during its development and application. |
