To World Community Grid members:

As we conclude the Computing for Sustainable Water project, we want to thank all of you for your generous effort on behalf of the CFSW project.

As we described at our launch, this project involves a very large model of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed in the Eastern United States. This is the largest estuary in the U.S. The Chesapeake Bay, like many estuaries worldwide, is under increasing stress from nutrient run-off from the land surface. The result of this is a degradation of the waters of the Bay with an impact on the environment as well as on the daily activities of the nearly 17 million persons living within the watershed.

President Obama issued an Executive Order in 2009 mandating that action be taken to mitigate the impact of nutrient run-off on the Bay. Many actions have been suggested, but none has been tested in the field on such a large scale. The Computing for Sustainable Water project tests many of these suggested “Best Management Practices” though a simulation model over a 20-year period.

As we examine the results of the CFSW project, we will be able to inform policy-makers and citizens about which of these BMPs offer the best opportunity to reduce the impact of nutrient flow and thus how to achieve the targets set by the President’s Executive Order.

Needless to say, as a result of your efforts, we have an enormous amount of data to now analyze. We will certainly share these results with you and the wider community as quickly as possible. We always intended to use this same simulation approach in other parts of the world with similar challenges. In fact, the UVa Team has visited a number of countries already to explore the opportunity to customize the CFSW simulation model for their regions.

Again, many thanks to all WCG members for their generous support of this and the other water projects chosen by the IBM World Community Grid Team.


With gratitude,

The UVa Team