Coast assessment of the chesapeake bay watershed in the United States of America, using the circles of coastal sustainability framework

• Autor(a) principal: Leyva Ollivier, María Esther
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/19851
• topic: Chesapeake bay; Management; Holistic framework; Sustainability; Indicators; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Naturais::Outras Ciências Naturais

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States of America, with watershed drainage covering parts of six states and a Federal District. The system was the first estuary in the nation targeted by Congress after the rapid loss of wildlife and aquatic life. The Chesapeake Bay Watershed’s (CBW) main socio-ecologic issues are eutrophication, overexploitation of resources, and industrial and urban development. This thesis aims to improve CBW management knowledge using holistic frameworks. The objectives are to contribute and assess the management, evaluate the sustainability of the socio-ecologic system, develop a normalized score for sustainability, and present these results using science communication techniques. The holistic frameworks used were DAPSI(W)R(M) and Circles of Coastal Sustainability (CCS). The DASPI(W)R(M) identified the CBW's structure, function, dynamics, and management. Meanwhile, CCS assessed its socio-ecologic sustainability in four domains: Environmental, Social, Economic, and Governance. To evaluate each domain, recognizable and comprehensive indicators were needed. Therefore, an independent literature review of each domain was developed to represent each score classification. The results of the DAPSI(W)R(M) framework indicate that the CBW is a complex system with conflicts between ecosystem health and social well-being. Overall, the score system gave a "Satisfactory" result in the CCS framework assessment. The grade was given because the socio-ecologic system is not healthy but is working towards sustainability. The results for each domain were "Satisfactory" in environmental, economic, and governmental and "Poor" in Social. The graphic design for the results was developed by a collaboration of experts, which aims to communicate sustainability to a broad audience with different specialties. The main discussion of the thesis was about the management recommendation for the CBW using the holistic framework results.