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Abstract: The inevitable need for freshwater to support the projected population growth along the ocean coast is an emerging issue of potential consequence to adjacent estuaries. A large and controversial water withdrawal/reservoir project in Virginia''s coastal plain was the basis of science–management interactions that quantified the vulnerability of tidal freshwater nekton for a series of water withdrawal scenarios. Through progressive iterations of the regulatory review process, which in Virginia includes academic reviews of all aspects of projects proposed to affect the marine and estuarine environment, we developed a novel approach to modeling entrainment probabilities applicable to situations that lack a locally validated hydrodynamic model. The science/management interplay ultimately resulted in surface water allocation strategies that are balances to society and the affected natural environment. Model results showed that the probability of encounter (contact between an egg or larva and one or more units of the intake array) ranged from 1.71% under the conditions of a high river flow and low withdrawal rate to 99.99% under the conditions of a low river flow and high withdrawal rate. The collective body of scientific information was incorporated into regulatory conditions placed on water withdrawals that are designed to protect at least 95% of early life history stages within the intake array''s zone of influence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A land use-based risk assessment was applied to dunefields in Virginia''s portion of the Chesapeake Bay in response to natural resource managers’ concerns and questions about the status of the resource, and the assumption that a new regulatory program should be initiated to manage development in dunefields. The risk assessment used social and physical metrics to focus the managers’ concern to a limited number of high-risk areas of significant natural resource value. Management alternatives were developed and adopted that were based on the conclusions of the risk assessment. The managers rejected their initial ideas of expanding the jurisdictions of existing programs or developing new regulatory programs and instead will implement land control for the areas of greatest value and highest risk. The risk assessment was successful in guiding the managers toward the most effective and cost efficient management strategy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]