Looking Ahead to Maryland 2050: Living in Our Environment

Abstracts

Panel II: Maryland in a Changing World

Land-Ocean Interface

Donald Boesch, President and Professor, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences

Abstract
The restoration of the Chesapeake Bay is surely Maryland’s principal environmental claim to fame on the global stage. Moreover, because of its geographic, cultural and economic importance protection and restoration of the Bay has been and will remain a key driver for environmental policy in the state, extending beyond water pollution and fisheries management to include land use, agricultural practices, and air quality. The state of play in restoration of the Chesapeake and the Maryland Coastal Bays is briefly reviewed and the future policy developments—and the science needed to support them—discussed. 

Speaker information
Dr. Donald Boesch is President of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) since 1990, longest serving president among the 13 University System of Maryland (USM) institutions. UMCES is the principal research institution for advanced environmental research and graduate studies within the USM. Through laboratories in Frostburg, Solomons Island and Cambridge and the Maryland Sea Grant College UMCES works to improve our scientific understanding of Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay region and the world and the quality of environmental decision making.

He has served concurrently as Interim-Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for the University System of Maryland from June 2002 to October 2003, assisting Chancellor Brit Kirwan on academic policy. He is also a member of the Maryland Governor’s Bay Cabinet during the administrations of Governors Schaefer, Glendening and Ehrlich, working closely and effectively with numerous secretaries of Natural Resources, Environment, Planning, Agriculture, and Transportation. Scientific Advisor to both the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and Pew Oceans Commission. Currently a member of advisory boards concerning restoration of the Everglades, coastal Louisiana and the Baltic Sea. He led a working group of scientists and engineers which developed a strategy for environmental management of the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina.

He has been engaged in scientific research on the Chesapeake Bay for 28 years. Since 1990, a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the Chesapeake Bay Program and the driving force and co-author of Chesapeake Futures: Choices for the for the 21st Century. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. Chairman of the Board of the Chesapeake Research Consortium (University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, Smithsonian Institution, College of William and Mary, Old Dominion University, and Pennsylvania State University). 

Dr. Boesch holds a B.S. in biology from Tulane University and a Ph.D. in oceanography from the College of William and Mary. Resides with his wife Michaelyn in Annapolis, Maryland.