What will the Chesapeake region look like in the year 2030?

What kind of landscape will the watershed become?

How healthy will the Bay be, and its major fisheries – blue crabs, oysters, striped bass and other fish?

To help answer these and other questions, the Chesapeake Bay Program's Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) has mounted a project entitled Chesapeake Futures. STAC is comprised of researchers and representatives from the region's major research and academic institutions.

The 160-page report, Chesapeake Futures: Choices for the 21st Century, edited by Donald F. Boesch and Jack Greer, is now available on the web in its entirety (in pdf format, 16MB).

With support from the Chesapeake Bay Program's Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC), Maryland Public Television has produced a half-hour documentary entitled, Chesapeake Past, Chesapeake Future. The video captures the voices of students, teachers, planners and scientists as they consider the fate of the Chesapeake Bay. This half-hour video draws from work undertaken by a team of technical experts tasked with looking ahead to the year 2030. Their efforts to peer into the future take the form of three possible scenarios, depending on the choices we make now, at the dawn of the new millennium.

Copies are available from the Maryland Sea Grant Book Store & Videos. For information about the Chesapeake Futures project, contact STAC c/o the Chesapeake Research Consortium (301) 261-4500, or email Melissa Fagan at faganm@ic.si.edu.