Session Lead: Zhengui Wang (Virginia Institute of Marine Science)

Co-Lead(s): Gopal Bhatt, Joseph Delesantro, Wenfan Wu

Session Format: Oral presentations

Session Description: 

This session explores the evolving Chesapeake Bay ecosystem through watershed, airshed, and estuarine perspectives. We are interested in highlighting advances in monitoring, data analytics, environmental management, and modeling that improve characterization of physical and biogeochemical water quality processes, and its association with ecosystems across atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic domains. Emphasis is placed on understanding drivers of nutrients and sediment loading, the downstream effects on critical habitats for living resources, and how these insights could inform decision-support tools such as the Chesapeake Bay Program’s CAST in improving assessments of past and future watershed planning and management.


A key focus will be placed on the development of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s next generation Phase 7 modeling framework, where greater emphasis is being placed on better representation of scale, biogeochemical processes, and incorporation of emerging high-resolution datasets in the model development. These advances would provide improved estimates of water quality response, habitat conditions, and management outcomes under current and future environmental pressures.


We welcome presentations on studies across land, air, and water that enhance understanding of nutrient and sediment sources and transport, assess management and modeling effectiveness, and advance of Phase 7 model components. The session aims to provide a multidisciplinary forum for improving ecosystem understanding and informing adaptive management across the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, and we also welcome presentations on the use of existing models such as Phase 6 for informing management decisions of CBP and other systems.

Presentations (Session 8 Abstracts):

  1. Lewis C. Linker, Gopal Bhatt, Joseph Zhang, Joseph Delesantro, Richard Tian, Zhengui Wang, Wenfan Wu, Jian Shen, Jesse Bash, Peter Claggett: Phase 7 Models of the Chesapeake Watershed, Estuary, and Airshed – Exploring Future Challenges of Changing Environmental Conditions and Growth
  2. Joseph Delesantro, Isabella Bertani, Gopal Bhatt, Jessica Rigelman, Lewis Linker: Characterizing annual streamflow, nutrient, and sediment loading and drivers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed through data-driven models
  3. Joseph Delesantro, Conor Keitzer, Gopal Bhatt, Michelle Katoski, Lewis Linker: Closing the phosphorus modeling gap in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
  4. Gopal Bhatt, Joseph Delesantro, Lewis Linker, Robert Burgholzer, Richard Tian, Zhengui Wang, Wenfan Wu: Progress in the development and linkage of fine-scale Phase 7 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Model
  5. Zhengui Wang, Yinglong J. Zhang, Jian Shen, Wenfan Wu: Status of The Phase-7 Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Model
  6. Richard Tian, Nicole Cai: Simulation of benthic microalgae impacts on water quality in shallow water systems, Corsica River, Chesapeake Bay
  7. Amir Reza Azarnivand, Jeremy Mark Testa: Modeling climate-driven flow increases on stratification in the Patuxent River Estuary: Implications for oxygen depletion
  8. Wenfan Wu, Zhengui Wang, Jian Shen, Y Joseph Zhang, Jeremy M Testa, Richard Tian, Lewis C Linker: Disentangling Drought-induced Algal Blooms in Tidal Freshwater Zones with an Interpretable Bloom Risk Index
  9. Anand Gnanadesikan, Rui Jin, Marie-Aude Pradal, Pierre St-Laurent: CDOM Absorption by Phytoplankton Modulates the distribution of Hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay
  10. Jiangtao Xu, Lixia Wang, Aijun Zhang, Wei Wu, Qichun Xu, Siqi Li, Lu Wang, Changsheng Chen, Lucila Houttuijn Bloemendaal, Ed Myers, Tom Shyka: Update on NOAA’s New Operational Forecast System for the Northeast US
  11. Robin Glas: When Is “Typical” Typical? Re-evaluating Hydrologic Base and Critical Periods for Chesapeake Bay Program Models
  12. Gopal Bhatt, Lewis Linker, Richard Tian, Jesse Bash, Chris Nolte: Initial assessment of future energy scenarios in Chesapeake airshed, watershed, and tidal bay nitrogen loads
  13. Garett Pignotti, Stephanie Nummer, Carlington Wallace: Modeling Water Quality Response of Urban Watersheds to Future Management Scenarios
  14. Lewis C. Linker, Gopal Bhatt, Richard Tian, and Raymond Najjar: Estimated Impacts of Environmental Change on Water Quality in the Chesapeake Bay Beyond Midcentury