Tips and information to facilitate environmental restoration efforts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
Did you know about the SAV reports? The Chesapeake Bay Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV) Synthesis Project brought together experts from the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partnership specializing in SAV, water quality, and land-use research and management. In response to interest from resource managers, local planners, and watershed organizations, the SAV Synthesis Project team conducted segment-specific reviews of SAV trends and progress towards restoration targets and created SAV fact-sheets for each segment. The fact sheets can be found on the TMDL Tracking page.
This month's CAST webinar will discuss how the model can be used for performance-based financing applications. Conservation Innovation Fund (CIF) will share examples of how they have used CAST to estimate and report pollutant reductions for various projects in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and elsewhere, including MD Clean Water Commerce Account Program, MS4 permitting, and USDA Climate Smart Commodities Grants. We will demonstrate how to create a scenario to quantify the load reductions from specific practices for estimating funding opportunities. Then, we will discuss adding carbon reduction estimates to CAST.
In-person trainings are available upon request.
The American Farmland Trust hosted a webinar on CAST, which demonstrated how to use CAST to evaluate trends over time as well as estimate loads from current or planned BMPs. Specifically, it:
A recording of this webinar is available on the American Farmland Trust's website.
Other past training videos, on topics ranging from buffers to targeting nutrient reductions, are available in the Learning section of CAST under 'Free Training Videos'. Amongst the variety of training content available, there are also short videos on topics like 'Where do I start,' under CAST 101 - Getting Started.
Shapiro Administration Celebrates Historic Improvements to the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and the Susquehanna River as Commonwealth Leads Effort to Improve Water Quality: Under the Shapiro Administration, Pennsylvania will continue to improve local waterways and water quality. Read more about this success story on the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's website.
Does your organization have a Chesapeake Bay Watershed success story you'd like to share? If you have a story you would like to see in the next CAST Newsletter, submit an article using the 'Contact Us' feature from any page of the CAST website.
The Chesapeake Bay Deadlines refer to the major jurisdictions' annual reporting of new BMPs implemented, and existing BMPs verified as functioning in the watershed. BMP implementation information is used to create annual progress scenarios using CAST and to make assessments and report out the estimated impacts of restoration efforts.
New features: The Trends Over Time Loads delivered to the streams and the Bay and Wastewater graphs have been updated to include 2022 and 2023 data.
A full list of changes is available on CAST's Upgrade History. The new CAST version is Phase 6 - 7.13.0.
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