Informing ecosystem approaches to management: Land use and climate change in relation to fishable and swimmable expectations in Chesapeake Bay

Ecosystem Approaches to Management (EAM) offer a means for science based decision making from a holistic viewpoint, including all relevant environmental and societal information.  However, in many cases, ecosystem goals are lacking and societal consensus is difficult to obtain.   The Clean Water and Magnuson acts provide us with generic expectations for ecosystem goods and services in providing both “fishable” and “swimmable” waters.  With the assistance of regional partners, we have initiated ecosystem assessments on several scales within Chesapeake Bay with the goals of determining the degree to which specific waters meet societal expectations, and the influence change in land use patterns or climate may have on the system’s future ability to provide desired ecosystem goods and services. This presentation will focus specifically on physiological to population level alterations in fish populations, and water quality impairment. We conclude that prioritizing ecosystem service trade-offs, and multi-institutional efforts to characterize and forecast consequences of policy decisions and change are crucial to effective ecosystem based management.