Note: This session combines proposed Session 1 “Emerging Tools and Technologies for Monitoring and Mitigating Estuarine Acidification in the Chesapeake Bay” and Session 10 “Carbon cycling in Chesapeake Bay and other coastal waters.”

Session Leads: Emma Venarde (Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network (MACAN), Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS)) and Raymond Najjar (Penn State University)

Co-Lead(s): Janet Reimer, Cassie Gurbisz, Whitman Miller, and Amanda Knobloch

Session Format: Oral presentations

Session Description: 

Carbon cycling links many of the Chesapeake Bay’s most pressing environmental challenges, including acidification, hypoxia, marsh inundation, declining water quality, and warming water. As a critical interface between land and sea, estuaries transport, transform, and store carbon in multiple forms. Estuaries connect rivers, tidal wetlands, open waters, sediments, and the atmosphere within the global carbon cycle. Increasingly, these systems are recognized not only as dynamic carbon processors but also as potential carbon sinks, through both natural mechanisms, such as blue carbon storage in submerged aquatic vegetation and tidal wetlands, and emerging human interventions, such as marine carbon dioxide removal and other nature-based solutions. River inputs, eutrophication, warming, and exchange of carbon dioxide with the atmosphere are altering the carbonate system of the Chesapeake Bay, potentially threatening ecologically and economically important species, including commercial fin and shellfish species. In response, the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network (MACAN) has fostered collaboration among regional researchers and managers to develop innovative monitoring systems, forecasting tools, and mitigation strategies based on sound research and established regional tools. Coastal managing strategies include seagrass restoration, carbonate monitoring and modeling, and evaluation of carbon-based mitigation approaches. This session brings together contributions that advance understanding of carbon cycling and acidification in the Chesapeake Bay and regional coastal systems, including studies of carbon stocks and fluxes, ecosystem linkages, biological and geochemical transformations, and applications of modeling, isotopic analysis, and remote sensing. Efforts that connect carbon cycling to ecosystem impacts, management strategies, and comparisons with other estuaries are particularly encouraged.

Presentations (Session 1 Abstracts)

    1. Lisa Haber, Paul Bukaveckas, Ed Crawford, S. Leigh McCallister, Scott Neubauer, Douglas Giles, Mindy Priddy, Stephanie Wilson, Moriah Young, Lauren Wick, Chris M. Gough: Vertical, Lateral, Tidal: Towards a comprehensive net ecosystem carbon budget for a tidal freshwater marsh in Virginia
    2. Stephanie J. Wilson: Long-term monitoring to calculate lateral carbon and alkalinity flux from a mesohaline tidal marsh
    3. Andrea Pain: Rates and magnitudes of blue carbon sequestration in marshes created by dredged material placement in Chesapeake Bay
    4. Amanda Knobloch: Comparing Carbon Concentrations and Composition in Tidal Marshes and Oyster Aquaculture
    5. Richard Hale, Richard Zimmerman, Victoria Hill, David Burdige: Blue Carbon Sequestration by Submerged Aquatic Vegetation in Chesapeake Bay:  Where’s the Peat?
    6. David J Burdige, Richard Zimmerman, Rip Hale, Victoria Hill, Summer Collier, Elijah Eddy, Anamika Das Kona, Caroline Marschalko: Alkalinity production and pyrite burial in seagrass sediments as a mechanism of Blue Carbon sequestration
    7. Cassie Gurbisz, Theresa Murphy, Hunter Walker, Meghan Stevens, Lilianna Bowman, William Faller, Raymond Najjar: Submersed aquatic vegetation modifies estuarine inorganic carbon and alkalinity dynamics
    8. Anamika Das Kona, Victoria Hill, Richard Zimmerman: Impact of Climate Change on Seagrass Dynamics in the Chesapeake Bay: Comparative Metabolic Responses of Widgeon Grass (Ruppia Maritima) and Eelgrass (Zostera Marina)
    9. Madison Griffin: Saturated with Data: Modeling Carbonate Chemistry Saturation State Thresholds in Mid-Atlantic Shellfish
    10. Tahera Attarwala: Aragonite Saturation State as an Indicator for Oyster Habitat Health in the Delaware Inland Bays
    11. Gabriel Duran, Paul A. del Giorgio, Candice Aulard, Julie Talbot, Daniel Houle, Louis Duchesne: Quantifying the aquatic carbon budget of two Canadian boreal watersheds: a tale of two lakes
    12. Raymond G. Najjar, Riley Westman, Devon Kerins, Li Li, Edward Stets, and Bryn Stewart: The carbonate chemistry of rivers draining to the Chesapeake Bay viewed through a new simplifying metric: Excess dissolved inorganic carbon
    13. Whitman Miller, Amanda Reynolds: Continuous but contrasting multi-year comparisons of measured carbonate parameters in the mesohaline Rhode River, MD
    14. Novia Mann, Hunter Walker, Quinn Roberts, Sophie Kuhl, Emily Rivest, Raymond Najjar, Zhaohui Aleck Wang, Amber Hardison: A Comparative Analysis of Carbonate System Dynamics of the York River and Potomac River Estuaries
    15. Zhendong Ji, Wei-jun Cai, Jeremy Testa, Casey Hodgkins, Charles Bott, Alexandria Gagnon, Riley Doyle, Sarah Pelt, Robert Izett, Ming Li, Will Burt: Quantifying the Efficacy of Wastewater Alkalinity Enhancement on Carbon Emission and Uptake in Chesapeake Bay
    16. Alexa Labossiere, Pierre St-Laurent, Kyle Hinson, Hongjie Wang, Marjorie A.M. Friedrichs: Efficiency of ocean alkalinity enhancement in the Chesapeake Bay
    17. Kyle Hinson: A Data-Driven Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement Module for the Chesapeake Bay