To capture data that reflect those blooms, spatially and temporally intensive data are 
required. In the shallow-water designated use areas, the DATAFLOW system can 
adequately characterize the spatial variability in chlorophyll a. 
A ‘recommended’ monitoring program for the open-water and migratory spawning 
and nursery designated use areas would include a combination of fixed-station, 
continuous track and remotely sensed data collection. Fixed-station data is usually 
considered the most reliable type of data collection because it includes ambient 
sample analysis in the laboratory. For that reason, it serves as the baseline for all 
other types of chlorophyll a measurement. Continuous-track (‘flow-through’) moni¬ 
toring should be developed for all vessels used to conduct the fixed-station 
monitoring program. Like the DATAFLOW system, the continuous-track monitoring 
would provide intensively collected data that would significantly improve our 
assessment of the spatial variation in chlorophyll a. One of the limitations of contin¬ 
uous-track monitoring is that it does not cover the entire Chesapeake Bay. Thus, the 
third type of recommended monitoring is remote sensing, which can provide esti¬ 
mates of chlorophyll a for most locations in the Bay. It is not clear at this point that 
remote sensing is ready for the criteria assessment application, but it does offer great 
potential. All three types of monitoring (fixed-station, continuous track, remote 
sensing) are recommended because each provides complementary types of informa¬ 
tion that are useful for evaluating different parts of the Chesapeake Bay. 
'Adequate' Level of Monitoring 
Assuming that funding will not be available for the recommended monitoring 
approach, an alternative would be to collect only fixed-station data enhanced with 
continuous track monitoring. This provides spatially intensive data wherever cruises 
occur, including most tidal tributaries. Furthermore, it represents a relatively small 
cost, particularly when considered in proportion to the amount of information that 
could be generated. The improvement of this approach over current monitoring is 
that spatially intensive data collection would be collected on a regular basis in most 
large tidal tributaries. The limitation would be that data would only be collected 
along cruise tracks and not intensively throughout the Chesapeake Bay (i.e., as might 
be possible with remote sensing). For that reason, the uncertainty associated with the 
‘adequate’ monitoring plan would be higher than the ‘recommended’ plan. 
'Marginal' Level of Monitoring 
If funding is not available for even the adequate level of monitoring, assessments 
would need to rely on fixed-station data only. This type of monitoring is limited in 
its ability to assess the spatial and temporal variability of chlorophyll a found in most 
of the Chesapeake Bay. The uncertainty associated with the assessment of chloro¬ 
phyll a criteria attainment using only the fixed-station monitoring program would be 
expected to be quite high. 
) 
chapter vi 
Recommended Implementation Procedures 
