Special Reports

Released in November 2022, The Technical Study on Changes in Forest Cover and Tree Canopy in Maryland, or Maryland Forest Technical Study, commissioned by the Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology and conducted together with Chesapeake Conservancy and the University of Vermont, uses high-resolution data to analyze forest and tree canopy change at the local scale and provide a greater understanding of the key drivers of change.

Virginia’s efforts to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay through implementing agricultural conservation practices also removed over 459 thousand tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere in 2019, providing significant co-benefits for mitigating climate change.

Identifying optimal solar sites and answering the key question: Are enough optimal sites available to meet Maryland’s renewable energy goals for solar energy?

Read about all of the amazing accomplishments of the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail throughout 2019! From the successful continuation of the Junior Ranger program, to the newly funded Maritime Crafts Field School, there is much to be celebrated.

The Envision the Susquehanna initiative, was launched by a core team comprised of the Chesapeake Conservancy, the National Park Service, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources,  Susquehanna River Heartland Coalition for Environmental Studies, Susquehanna Greenway Partnership, and the Wildlife Management Institute in 2013. The core team as well as an advisory council of almost 40 organizations have encouraged individuals, community leaders and organizations to describe their vision for the Susquehanna River watershed. This report details the results of the initial planning process and lays out a vision for the future of the Susquehanna River.

A 10th Anniversary Tribute to the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail established December 19, 2006.

In support of the Greater Baltimore Wilderness Coalition, the Chesapeake Conservancy has produced the Green Infrastructure Report: Baltimore City to describe and promote three new technology resources to help guide the Coalition’s ongoing and future projects to expand and strengthen the network of green infrastructure in the Greater Baltimore Region. These tools are: Baltimore City Land Cover Classification, Vacant Lot Opportunities Analyst, and Park Finder: Baltimore. The details of these tools are discussed in this report.

In 2012, Chesapeake Conservancy, with the support of the Digital Energy and Sustainability Solutions Campaign (DESSC), explored the role that technology could play in expanding the application of precision conservation; or getting the right practices, at the right scale, at the right time, in the right place. To increase the use of these emerging landscape analysis techniques, DESSC provided the Conservancy with an additional grant to test the most promising technologies and identify how these tools could improve the capabilities of the conservation community, identify the major challenges to implementing them on a wider scale, and better understand the ability for the resulting datasets to highlight priority landscapes within the project watershed.

The Low Cost Water Quality Monitoring Needs Assessment report was performed by Chesapeake Conservancy’s Conservation Innovation Center to guide the Conservancy’s entry into the water quality monitoring field. It also provided the basis for a mission?related set of findings and action recommendations made to the Conservancy. The report follows the Center’s earlier investigation into precision conservation analysis tools and serves as a complementary resource guide featuring technologies available for acquisition and remote transmission of site specific water quality monitoring data. Among other goals, the Conservation Innovation Center aspires to facilitate broader citizen?based monitoring efforts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed using innovative, low cost devices.

In May 2013, the Chesapeake Conservancy and Aspen Institute hosted a roundtable exploring the role that conservation innovation can play in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the conservation community. Over the course of two days, thirty-five experts in the fields of conservation targeting, remote sensing, communications and conservation finance discussed the challenges currently facing conservation organizations, promising technologies and techniques that could help bridge some of these gaps, and the Conservancy’s plans for a virtual Conservation Innovation Center for the Chesapeake Bay region. This report details the results of this roundtable.

The Envision the James (ETJ) initiative, launched by a team comprised of the Chesapeake Conservancy, the James River Association and National Geographic Maps in 2011, has encouraged individuals, community leaders and organizations to describe their vision for the James River watershed. This report details the results of the initial planning process and lays out a vision for the future of the James River.

Prepared by the National Park Service, in collaboration with the Chesapeake Conservancy, this Conservation Strategy provides the means for defining priority conservation areas relative to the trail and designing appropriate conservation methods. Its focus is on saving the places that enrich visitor experiences and recreation along the trail and that contribute synergy to the many programs working to improve quality of life along the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers.

The Chesapeake Bay Watershed Large Landscape Conservation Workshop convened at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia on August 16-17, 2012. Colleagues representing over 30 organizations and agencies shared rapid, six-minute presentations highlighting on-going collaborative efforts, discussed the characteristics of large landscape conservation, explored how to focus on particular landscapes, and identified principles and some immediate actions the group and individual organizations can advance to foster collaboration. This report summarizes the discussions.

In “Conserving Chesapeake Landscapes,” the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the Chesapeake Conservancy have recommended actions to promote and accelerate progress on land conservation in the Chesapeake watershed and enable the region’s governments to meet the new goal to conserve two million acres of land and create 300 public access points watershed-wide by 2025 and Virginia’s goal of 400,000 acres by 2014.