Improvements - Scientists are improving the watershed models resolution, thus its accuracy. They are also extending its simulation period from four to seven years. Other improvements include an expanded set of agricultural BMPs, such as forest buffers and nutrient uptake, and reservoir simulations. Scientists are also adding living resource components. This includes placing submerged aquatic vegetation along shallows of the model and adding potential impacts of organisms inhabiting both sediments and the water column.
Local projects support modeling improvements as well.
Better fall-line monitoring will enable more precise estimates of watershed nutrient loadings. Enhanced monitoring, begun in 1994, will help characterize tidal tributary water quality, particularly shallow flanks of the rivers where much habitat and living resources are. Likewise, a program to characterize major point source dischargers below the fall-line in the James, Rappahannock and York rivers is underway. This will enable development of the most accurate nutrient loadings within each tributary. In effect, bay tributaries store large amounts of nutrients and sediments that flow downstream during rainy seasons.