Session Lead: Raleigh Hood (University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science)
Co-Lead(s): DG Webster, Patrick Bitterman, Victoria Coles, Peter Claggett, Sevgi Erdogan, Theodore Lim
Session Format: Oral presentations
Session Description:
The grand challenges confronting management and decision making in Chesapeake Bay airshed, watershed and estuary result from the interaction of humans with their environment. Commercial and recreational fisheries, air quality, agricultural and energy production practices, population growth, and land use change all impact the function of the land and water systems that together comprise the Chesapeake Bay socio-environmental system. In turn, the health and quality of the environment affect humans and decision-making at multiple spatial and temporal scales – from individuals up through the state and federal levels, today and decades into the future. Models – from the conceptual to the mathematical – are representations of how we understand this critical nexus of interacting issues. Yet, coupling social, economic, policy and governance models with environmental models to assess the impact of strategic management and policy actions remains challenging. This session invites research relevant to conceptual, theoretical or numerical models of socio-environmental systems or that identifies gaps and challenges hindering the integration of social and environmental models, to better understand their combined impact.