The Scientific, Technical Assessment & Reporting (STAR) team works to coordinate the monitoring, modeling and analysis needed to explain and communicate the health of and changes in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.
Scope and Purpose
The Scientific, Technical Assessment & Reporting (STAR) Team Purpose:
Increase collaboration among science providers to provide monitoring, modeling, and analysis needed to update, explain, and communicate ecosystem condition and change to support the Chesapeake Bay Program Goal Teams.
Function of STAR within the Chesapeake Bay Program Framework:
The new Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement signed on June 16, 2014 will require additional monitoring, modeling, and analysis to help decision makers effectively achieve goals and associated outcomes. CBP science activities are coordinated through the STAR Team. Over the past several years, STAR had a heavy emphasis on water-quality activities as the partners implemented the Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). To address the needs of the Watershed Agreement, STAR is evolving to have more of an ecosystem-based science mission. The STAR Team serves the CBP as a science callaboration effort to include the following major functions:
- Manage CBP-funded monitoring networks and coordinate with additional science providers to utilize expand networks to address the new Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement.
- Ensure information quality, management, and access.
- Update, and deliver, the status and trends (indicators) of ecosystem conditions.
- Explain ecosystem condition and change.
- Expand modeling to better understand and predict ecosystem response.
- Coordinate climate change activities.
- Synthesize and communicate results to support the CBP decision framework being used by the Goal Teams to develop and implement management strategies for the New Agreement
Please refer to report entitled, Enhancing Science Collaboration to Support the New Chesapeake Bay Agreement from January 2015.
STAR Workgroups:
Much of the technical expertise needed to address the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement already exists within the Goal Teams and with science providers (federal, state, and academic partners) involved in the CBP. The STAR Team facilitates collaboration between science providers and Goal Teams as well as work within the six STAR Workgroups to support the CBP priorities and assist with management decision making. Please visit the "Workgroups & Task Groups" tab for more information on individual workgroups and action teams.
Building Environmental Intelligence (BEI) (formerly BASIN):
STAR is currently facilitating a formal review of the CBP Monitoring Networks to recommend effort to sustain the Chesapeake Bay Monitoring in the face of funding uncertainty and inflationary pressures. BEI is a three phase process that delivered recommendations for a short-tmer funding GAP in 2013 and is moving forward to look at network design and opperational efficiencies as well as the potential for new partners in monitoring.
STAR also hosts the IAN Seminar Series:
The goal of the IAN seminar series is to provide concise, thought-provoking ideas relating to Chesapeake Bay science and management. Short presentations (15 minutes maximum length) are immediately followed by a lunchtime discussion of the topics raised by the presenter. The discussion is summarized and is posted along with a pdf version of the seminar slides. The seminars are captured on video and posted under a Creative Commons license so they can be freely shared.
Projects and Resources
Cross-Goal Team Mapping Project January 2017
The Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement recognizes that “to be successful in achieving its goals and outcomes, progress must be made in a strategic manner, focusing on efforts that will achieve the most cost-effective results.” It further acknowledges that using place-based approaches, where appropriate, will help produce recognizable benefits to local communities while contributing to larger ecosystem goals.
STAR, with the CBP GIS Team, is supporting a cross-outcome mapping effort for the Goal Implementation Teams (GITs) to more effectively collaborate on inter-related outcomes, This project is helping to identify places where the CBP can more strategically make progress toward inter-related outcomes.
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Cross GIT Collaboration Mapping Project 2017 Updated Jan 18, 2017 (904.21 KB)
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Revised Management Questions Master January 23, 2017 (225.53 KB)
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Composite maps April 2017 (288.22 KB)
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Conservation Composite Data Inventory April 2017 (242.18 KB)
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Opportunity Threat Overlays March 2017 (110.98 KB)
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Restoration Composite Data Inventory January 2017 (181.45 KB)
Measure and Explain Water-Quality Changes
Midpoint Assessment Priority Work Plan: Measure and Explain Water Quality Changes
Lead: Scientific, Technical Analysis, and Report (STAR) Team
Full Title of Priority: Enhanced Analysis and Explanation of Water-Quality Data for the TMDL Mid-Point Assessment
The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) will enhance the analysis and explanation of monitoring information as part of the Mid-Point Assessment for the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load for Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Sediment (Bay TMDL).
American Shad Indicator Action Team
The American Shad Indicator Action Team (ASIAT) was assembled in summer 2012 as a joint effort between the Scientific and Technical Analysis and Reporting (STAR) Team and the Sustainable Fisheries Goal Implementation Team (Fisheries GIT). ASIAT’s purpose was to determine how to most accurately track the recovery progress of American Shad in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. The ASIAT met seven times from August 2012 through August 2013 to review and update the Chesapeake Bay Program’s American Shad Abundance Indicator . In that time, the team added two new data sets to the indicator and updated the abundance targets for all Virginia tributaries based on historic population data. The team also agreed to a new weighting scheme for individual tributaries to calculate the Baywide shad abundance index. ASIAT may reconvene in late 2014 or 2015 to consider adding additional data to the indicator. Until then, Chesapeake Bay Program staff are working with ASIAT members to keep the indicator web page updated with the most recent data.
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ASIAT Membership List (58.95 KB)
Evolving the STAR Team to Better Meet the Science Needs of the Chesapeake Bay Program (2011)
The purpose of this report is to provide an implementation plan for Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) Scientific, Technical Assessment, and Reporting (STAR) team to expand its science capacity to better meet the needs of the Goal Implementation Teams (GITs). The plan provides a revised purpose and functions of STAR, based on an adaptive-management approach, and recommends actions for evolving the STAR to include a broader group of science providers and enhancing interaction with the GITs to address their science needs.
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Final Report: Evolving the Scientific, Technical Assessment, and Reporting (STAR) Team to Better meet the Science needs of the Chesapeake Bay Program (February 2011) (1.19 MB)
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Presentation of Final Report to the CBP Management Board (March 2011) (623.07 KB)
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New Proposed Structure of STAR (November 2009) (1.43 MB)
Toxic Contaminants Action Team
For many years, scientists and resource managers have recognized that exposure to toxiccontaminants can result in adverse effects on biological resources within the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. In 2010, the President’s Chesapeake Bay Executive Order (EO 13508) Strategy directed Federal agencies to prepare a report summarizing information on the extent and severity of occurrence of toxic contamination in the Bay and its watershed. In responce to the Executive Order the Toxic Contaminants Action Team was charged with the task of developing this report. Findings in this report will be used by the CBP partnership to consider whether to adopt new goals for reducing inputs of toxic contaminants entering the Bay. This report also identifies research and monitoring gaps that could be considered to improve the understanding of the extent and severity occurrence of toxic contaminants in the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.
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Toxic Contaminants Action Team Members List (202.37 KB)
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Technical Report (2012): Toxic Contaminants in the Chesapeake Bay and its Watershed (6.08 MB)
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Toxic Contaminants Report Overview (330.41 KB)
Monitoring Re-Alignment Action Team Reports
In 2009 the CBP Management Board accepted the principal findings of a STAC review of Chesapeake Bay Program and charged the Monitoring Re-Alignment Action Team (MRAT) to developed a report to better align monitoring activities with the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership priorities.
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MRAT Presentation of Recommendations to the CBP Management Board (November 2009) (247.42 KB)
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MRAT Report Part A - MRAT Final Report to the CBP Management Board (October 2009) (284.66 KB)
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MRAT Report Part B - Development and Implementation of a Process for Establishing CBP's Monitoring Program Priorities and Objectives (March 2009) (42.29 KB)
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MRAT Report Part C - Recommendations to Improve Coordinated Nontidal Monitoring, Assessment, and Communication Activities in Support of Chesapeake Bay Restoration (August 2009) (814.6 KB)
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MRAT Report Part D - Monitoring Needs and Partnership Opportunities Assessment (September 2009) (721.17 KB)
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MRAT Report Part E - Considering Communications (September 2009) (37.42 KB)
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MRAT Report Part F - CBP's STAC Technical Review of the CBP's Monitoring Program: Lessons Learned from the MRAT Process (51.54 KB)
Publications
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November 28, 2017
Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Dissolved Oxygen, Water Clarity and Chlorophyll a for the Chesapeake Bay and Its Tidal Tributaries 2017 Technical Addendum
A total of seven addendum documents have been published by EPA since April 2003. Four addenda were published documenting detailed refinements to the criteria attainment and assessment procedures (U.S. EPA 2004a, 2007a, 2008,...
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May 01, 2017
Chesapeake Bay Program Methods and Quality Assurance for Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Monitoring Programs
This document is the product of the work and support provided by the CBP Data Integrity Workgroup (DIWG) and the Nontidal Workgroup. It was first published in 1996, under the name "Recommended Guidelines for Sampling and...
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September 01, 2008
Review of Phase 5 Watershed Model Hydrologic Calibration
The hydrologic calibration of the phase 5 watershed model was evaluated through 9 published acceptable criteria used in HSPF Expert system. The specific flow characteristics evaluated are: Error in total volume; Error in...