Prioritizing aquatic science and applications needs in the Chesapeake Bay for a space-borne hyperspectral mission

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America. It benefits a growing population through its ecosystem services, fishing, recreation, and transportation routes. While studies indicate the health of the Chesapeake Bay has seen some improvement in recent years, threats to its health persist (e.g. warming, pollution and nutrient run-off). Increasing human presence in coastal regions requires constant vigilance by resource managers, particularly by agencies managing water quality, to ensure the safety of the population. Synoptic satellite coverage of the Bay could greatly assist managers. We convened a workshop with Chesapeake Bay science and applications stakeholders under an overall theme of water quality monitoring needs and capabilities. Panel discussions focused on sharing environmental variable needs of managers and satellite data products that could address those needs, through current or future capabilities. One panel addressed information required by managers to perform their tasks related to quantifying ecology to support their decision making process. Another panel addressed impacts to human health, such as harmful algal blooms, shellfish poisoning, and vibrio cholerae. The third panel addressed land-water interactions such as wetlands, turbidity, and bottom depth. Discussions also focused on prioritizing observables that could reasonably be measured from space. Current and planned ocean color observations of the Bay have been limited in spatial and spectral resolution. Recently, Landsat and Sentinel have afforded higher spatial resolution at limited spectral and temporal resolution frequently plagued by sun glint over water. Currently an ocean color image can indicate bloom locations to assist in situ sampling efforts. In the future, high resolution, hyperspectral imagery combined with biodiversity modelling may indicate community structure and possibly be used to pinpoint species. Understanding the needs of the aquatic user community around the Chesapeake Bay will inform future scoping studies of other estuaries and help guide the science and applications choices made for the Surface Biology and Geology Mission.