BES Annual Meeting Agenda

Baltimore Ecosystem Study Annual Meeting

Agenda

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

Cylburn Arboretum, Vollmer Center, Baltimore, MD

 8:00 –  8:25 am          Breakfast

 8:25 –  8:30                Meeting Logistics: Morgan Grove

 8:30 –  9:00                Welcome and Introduction

                                    Presentation of Director’s Award

                                    S.T.A. Pickett, Project Director

 9:00 –  9:30                Keynote Speaker-David Sloan Wilson

                                    Evolution as a general theoretical framework for urban ecosystem studies

                                   

 9:30 – 10:45               Session 1 (5)

 9:30  –  9:45               Land use and climate alter carbon dynamics in watersheds of Chesapeake Bay—S.S. Kaushal, S. Duan, M. Grese, M. Pennino, K.T. Belt, S.E.G. Findlay, P.M. Groffman, P. Mayer, S. Murthy, J. Blomquist

 9:45 – 10:00               Time is money: An empirical examination of the dynamic effects of uncertainty on residential subdivision development—D. Wrenn

10:00 – 10:15              Developing learning progressions for student understanding of water systems in Baltimore—B. Caplan, T. Newcomer

10:15 – 10:30              Biodiversity in urban stormwater ponds—K. Brundrett, C. Wahl, C. Swan

10:30 – 10:45              Urban community forestry in Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD: The role of nonprofit organizations—M. Rodier

10:45 – 11: 00             Break

11: 00 – 12:30             Session 2 (6)

11: 00 – 11:15             Identifying the effect of down-zoning in Baltimore County on residential subdivision development in Carroll and Harford Counties—E. Irwin, C. Towe, A. Klaiber, D. Wrenn

11: 15 – 11:30             Uncultivated: A physical and virtual tour of Baltimore's wild plant life—L. Cazabon, C. Partain

11: 30 – 11:45             Effects of stormwater management and stream engineering on nitrogen uptake and denitrification in streams—T. Newcomer, S.S. Kaushal, P.M. Mayer, P.M. Groffman, M.M. Grese

11: 45 – 12:00             Collective strategies for increasing Baltimore City’s tree canopy—E. Tyler

12:00 – 12:15              Recalculating the WUI to strengthen ecological vulnerability planning in the urban-rural transition zone—H. Howard

12:15 – 12:30              What's missing from Baltimore's urban fish communities and why?: A preliminary comparative analysis of fish assemblage data—S. Kemp

12:30  –  1:30              Lunch

  1:30  –  3:00              Poster Session

  3:00  –  4:00              Session 4 (6)

  3:00  –  3:15              Watershed flow dynamics of the Baltimore Region—A. Bhaskar, C. Welty, A. Seck, R. Maxwell, C. Jantz, S. Drzyzga, R. Sanderson, A. Miller, G. Lindner, J. Cole

  3:15  –  3:30              Climate change in Maryland: A strategy for resilience—M. Griswold, Z. Johnson

  3:30  –  3:45              Ecological complexity and disease vectors:  Phenology and composition of urban mosquito communities in Baltimore—S. LaDeau

  3:45  –  4:00              Baltimore Sustainability Program utilizing Baltimore Ecosystem Study as a tool and resource—B. Strommen

  4:00 –  6:00               Time to set up for COH

  6:00                           Community Open House and Greening Celebration

Thursday, 20 October 2011

  8:00 –   8:30               Breakfast

 8:30 – 10:15               Session 5 (7)

 8:30 –   8:45               From professional development to effective teaching of environmental science—A. R. Berkowitz, B. Caplan, A. Alvarado, S. Haines

   8:45  –  9:15             The Role of Parks & People Foundation’s Informal Environmental Education in MSDE’s Environmental Literacy Implementation Plan—D. Shelley, M. Hardcastle

   9:15 –  9:30              A tale of two systems: comparative results for vegetation functional diversity for "Clean & Green" and unmanaged vacant lots—Y.  Williams

   9:30 – 10:00             Denitrification enzyme activity in stormwater control structures—N.  Bettez, P. Groffman

  10:00 – 10:15            Pilot testing of distributed temperature sensing in Dead Run—C.  Welty, J. Miller, J. Duncan

 10:15 – 10:30             Pharmaceutical compounds in BES streams: concentrations and ecological effects—E. J. Rosi-Marshall, D. Kincaid, H. Bechtold, T. V. Royer

10:30 – 10:45              Effects of urbanization on dissolved organic matter composition in Maine, USA—T. Parr, C. Cronan, T. Ohno, K. Simon

10:45 – 11:00              Break

11:00 – 12:45              Session 6 (7)

11:00 – 11:15              Estimation of soil CO₂ effluxes from suburban forest and lawn using continuous measurements of CO₂ profiles in soils—J. Chun, K. Szlavecz, D. Ferrer, M. Bernard, S. Pitz, J. Hom, B. Zaitchik

11:15 – 11:30              Spatial and temporal controls of nitrogen cycling and export—J. Duncan, P. Groffman, L. Band

11:30 – 11:45              Spectral analysis of long-term and high-frequency chloride and nitrate stream chemistry data in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study LTER watersheds—J. Verhoef, C. Welty, S. Kaushal, A. Miller        

11:45 – 12:00              Ultra-urban baseflow and stormflow concentrations and fluxes in a watershed undergoing watershed restoration (WS263)—K.T. Belt,  W.P. Stack, R. Pouyat, K. Burgess, P. Groffman, S. Kaushal

12:00 – 12:15              Integrated hydrologic modeling: discretization, initialization and hydrogeologic data input—A. Seck, C. Welty, J. Cole, R. Maxwell

12:15 – 12:30              Sources and transformations of carbon and nitrogen in the Potomac River Estuary—M. Pennino, S. Kaushal, S. Murthy          

12:30 – 12:45              Land-use effect on stream organic matter composition in two metropolitan areas in USA—S. Duan, S. Kaushal, R. Amon, R. Brinkmeyer

Baltimore Ecosystem Study Steering Committee Meeting 18 October

Agenda
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
1:00 - 5:00 pm
Location:
US Geological Survey Maryland, Delaware, DC Center Office

(BW Tech on UMBC campus)

5522 Research Park Drive
Baltimore, MD 21228

Directions

1. Acceptance of the Agenda
2. Five minute overviews: Director, Graduate, Education, Community Engagement, Information
   
3. Management, Site report, Grant proposals and awards.
   
4. Synthesis volume
5. Research Coordination Network on Urban Sustainability
6. Quarterly meetings: topics and dates
7. Break
8. Status of plans for sustainability technical committee
9. Physical sample inventory and location
10. Art and science group LTER Network
11. Facebook page – who to check? How often? How to joining and participate.
12. Table tent and banner – description, use, storage, check out, and return.

Adjourn 5:00 pm.

BES Annual Meeting and Greening Celebration & Community Open House

Reminder to register for the BES Annual Meeting. It's only one week away!

Here is the link to register: here.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Delegation of Chinese Scientists Visits BES

On September 20th, 2011, the Baltimore Ecosystem Study hosted a delegation of Chinese scientists from the Guizhou Academy of Sciences (GAS). The Guizhou Academy of Sciences is a unique provincial comprehensive natural science research organization with a history of over 70 years. GAS is comprised of seven institutions: Guizhou Botanical Garden, Guizhou Biological Research Institute, Guizhou Karst Resources Environment and Development Research Center, Guizhou Physical Test and Chemical Analysis Center, Guizhou Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering Institute, Guizhou New Material Base, and Guizhou New Technology Research Institute.

The delegation was sponsored by the San Francisco United States-China Exchange Council who brought the delegation to the United States for three weeks to learn how the U.S. maintains its biodiversity in hopes of informing their own efforts to set up biodiversity studies in their home province. The Academy is currently designing biodiversity vegetation studies in two forested areas in Guizhou Province. One area is fully protected while the second is situated near an urban center.

The delegation consisted of 10 scientists mainly from environmental and ecologically based disciplines. The day began at University of Maryland, Baltimore County where BES Ecology Education Program Leader, Bess Caplan, and Delegate Mary Washington, from the Parks & People Foundation, gave an overview of the structure and management practices of BES. Following their presentation, Chris Swan, from UMBC, gave an overview of biodiversity studies within BES. The day continued with lunch followed by a visit to two BES research sites: a permanent plot site in Leakin Park and a riparian restoration site along Stony Run.

The delegation was enthusiastic about the day and is looking forward to continuing conversations and collaborations with BES. A formal invitation has been presented to several BES collaborators to visit their research sites in the Guizhou Province of China.

Watershed Science Bulletin

The Bulletin Spring 2012 Issue: The Application of Monitoring and Modeling in Watershed Management 

Fall 2011 Cover

 Watershed Science Bulletin (The Bulletin) is the journal of the recently launched Association of Watershed and Stormwater Professionals (www.awsps.org), a program of the Center for Watershed Protection.  This peer-reviewed journal is published semiannually and features practical, science-based solutions to important watershed and stormwater management issues.  The Bulletin is the first publication to directly serve the watershed management professional community.  These busy professionals typically do not have access to academic research databases for the numerous disciplines that inform watershed management.  The journal’s mission is to synthesize both research and experience from these disciplines and transmit this valuable information to those who need it to protect and restore their watersheds. Therefore, the information provided in The Bulletin is vital to the continuing education of watershed management professionals.

AWSPs is currently soliciting short articles (5,000 words or less) for the Spring 2012 issue of The Bulletin.  In this issue, we hope to elicit articles on the practical applications of monitoring and modeling to assess watersheds and how these tools are used to inform the decision making process to protect or improve watershed health.  Monitoring and modeling are the primary tools used to assess watersheds and may be used for problem identification, evaluation of alternatives or measuring progress towards a desired goal or end-point.  Each tool has its merits that must be weighed by the local watershed or stormwater manager to determine what approach is most appropriate for a current project or program, such as data availability and quality, costs associated with monitoring or modeling, timeframe, and technical expertise.  It may also be desirable to use both monitoring and modeling as part of an integrated approach.  Modeling may be used to help understand or scope the type of issues present or severity of a given problem to help focus monitoring efforts, whereas data generated from a monitoring program may be used for model calibration and validation models.

As watersheds encompass land, people and water, research on the economic, social, hydrologic, chemical and biological aspects of watershed monitoring and modeling will be considered.  Topics related to the evaluation of specific models, technologies or equipment will not be considered.  Preference will be given to articles that address one of the topics provided below:

• The use of monitoring and/or modeling to support local watershed or stormwater programs, as separate tools or as an integrated approach
• Case study applications of monitoring and/or modeling for problem identification, evaluation of solutions, or measuring progress towards a targeted endpoint
• Overview and/or review of models to support local watershed or stormwater programs
• The type of model most appropriate for the application (e.g. empirical, physical, spatially explicit vs. lumped)
• The type of monitoring most appropriate for the application (e.g. automated sampling vs. in-situ sampling vs. grab sampling, qualitative vs. quantitative surveys)
• The application of data generated from volunteer-based monitoring programs
• Use monitoring and/or modeling to support regulatory mandates
• Effective implementation of local monitoring programs (e.g., purpose and how are they administered, managed, funded)
• Use and/or adequacy of existing databases or clearinghouses to support monitoring needs or modeling efforts to inform watershed or stormwater programs (e.g. STORET, International BMP Clearinghouse, National Stormwater Quality Database, USGS water data)

Neely L. Law, PhD, is the Editor-in-Chief, Watershed Science Bulletin at the

Center for Watershed Protection, 8390 Main St., 2nd Floor, Ellicott City, MD 21043

www.cwp.org

www.stormwatercenter.net

Connect With the New Stewardship Map

In association with the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, Baltimore Office of Sustainability, TreeBaltimore, Blue Water Baltimore, CPHA and Baltimore Green Space, Parks & People is encouraging individuals and organizations involved in environmental stewardship in Baltimore City to fill out a brief survey that will be sent out in mid-September. The information that is collected will be compiled to form a new website that will include a list of organizations and project locations on an interactive map.

If you currently provide educational opportunities, hands-on projects, community programming or information about environmental stewardship, please take some time to complete the survey! To be sure that you receive the survey, send your email address to baltimore.stewardship@gmail.com.

Parks & People is a founding member and partner in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) since 1997. The goal of their participation in the Study is to link scientists with decision-makers so that the research reflects the needs of our community.

Elena Irwin Receives NSF Grant Award

Elena Irwin, BES Co-PI and Associate Professor at Ohio State University, received a new competitive grant award from the National Science Foundation’s Geography and Spatial Sciences program to develop spatial agent-based models of urbanization. 

The two-year research project is joint with Yong Chen, assistant professor at Oregon State University, and Ciriyam Jayaprakash, Professor of Physics, Ohio State University.  

The BES researchers are developing spatial economic models of land development and will apply them to the Baltimore region to study past and future policy alternatives and ecosystem impacts.  The models will be calibrated using extensive historical data on residential subdivision and urban land development that Irwin and other BES researchers have developed over the past several years.

This is a plat map of a residential subdivision in Carroll County. Using data from Maryland Archives, we are using these plat maps to create spatial datasets of residential subdivision development for Carroll, Harford, Baltimore and Howard Counties. The new grant will make use of these data to develop agent-based spatial models of household location and land development that will be used to run past and future policy scenarios.