is a partnership program between NOAA Chesapeake Bay Program Office and the Integration and Application Network (IAN) at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences (UMCES). EcoCheck is located at the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory, on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay. The purpose of EcoCheck is to enhance and support the science, management and restoration of Chesapeake Bay through the integration of geographically detailed assessments and forecasts. Effective management is essential for improved health of Chesapeake Bay and EcoCheck helps provide the support and knowledge needed for this effort.
Latest Report Card
2008 Coastal Bays report card
This report card provides a transparent, timely, and geographically detailed assessment of 2008 Coastal Bays’ health. Prepared annually, the report card rates six reporting regions of the Coastal Bays, using six indicators combined into a single overarching index of health. Health is defined as progress towards established scientifically derived ecological thresholds or goals. The overall health of Coastal Bays was moderate in 2008, obtaining a grade of C+. The report card website enables you to explore the report card in more detail via the regions and indicators.
Latest newsletter
New Stream Health Indicator Being Developed
The Chesapeake Bay Program and its partners developed an improved stream health indicator that provides a regional assessment of benthic (bottom-dwelling) macroinvertebrate community health. Benthic data collected in different ways by various natural resource agencies were incorporated into a Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity that rates stream health across the entire 64,000 square miles of watershed that drain into Chesapeake Bay. Overall, the analysis showed that out of 3,291 sampling sites in the watershed, 1,632 of the sites had very poor or poor conditions and 1,056 sites had good or excellent conditions. For further information, visit the Stream Health Indicator website.
Latest report
2008 Chesapeake Bay Summer Review
Several large river flow events during winter and spring were forecast to result in worse than average dissolved oxygen and harmful algal bloom conditions this summer. However, observed summer conditions were not as bad as predicted with dissolved oxygen levels being close to the long-term average and Potomac River harmful algal blooms (Microcystis) were relatively small and of shorter duration. These better than predicted levels may in part be attributed to the relatively dry summer. Despite the average mainstem Bay dissolved oxygen levels, harmful algal blooms and fish kills were reported in many of the Bays tributaries. Here we summarize summer conditions and offer some explanations as to why they may have occurred.
Latest poster
Supporting management through an annual cycle of ecological forecasting and assessment
This poster describes a novel approach to supporting management through an annual cycle of ecological forecasting and integrated assessment. The cycle consists of: (1) forecasting Chesapeake Bay summer ecological conditions in spring; (2) tracking summer ecological conditions and assessing the accuracy of the forecast until fall; and, (3) completing the cycle in early spring by assessing overall Bay health and producing a geographically detailed ecosystem health report card.
The areas that EcoCheck focuses on are highlighted below.
• Increased understanding of how climatology affects fish recruitment in Chesapeake Bay.
• Incorporation of spatially explicit data into current management tools.
• Effective use of ecosystem health indicators.
• Prediction of fisheries variability with forecast models.
The EcoCheck approach builds on the circular relationship between assessment and forecasting. Assessments provide the data and questions from which quantitative forecast models are developed. Continued assessment enables the forecast models to be tested and refined. Given the size and complexity of the issues affecting the Bay, EcoCheck projects aim to be as geographically detailed as possible. Communication tools will be used to maximize impact of the project findings in terms of improving Bay management. We hope to make a maximum impact for a small program by working collaboratively with other programs.
