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Dec 1, 2023 · Excessive flows of nutrients into the Chesapeake Bay can damage the bay's environment, yielding coastal dead zones, fish kills, and impaired drinking water supplies. Agriculture is a main contributor to nutrient run-off, responsible for 38 percent of the bay's nitrogen and 45 percent of phosphorus loadings. https://www.ers.usda.gov
Nov 10, 2023 · Precipitation driven agriculture nutrient runoff is a major contributor to dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The term "Dead Zone" is used to describe an area of water where the dissolved oxygen levels are below marine life survivability, hence the "dead", in "dead zones".
- Largest Estuary in The U.S.
- Dead Zones, Decimated Fisheries
- States Keep Failing
- Run-Off from Farms and Sewage
- Warming World, Warming Water
Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the country, stretching over 45,000 square miles. It is home to 10 million people and 3,600 species of marine life, and brings in more than $33 billion a year in seafood, shipping and tourism. The estuary receives fresh water from a massive network of rivers and tributaries spanning 64,000 square miles acros...
Collectively known as nutrient pollution, excess nitrogen and phosphorus are, as Colden puts it, too much of a good thing. In a process called eutrophication, the nutrients fuel rapid growth in algae. The surplus of algae dies and sinks to the bottom of the Bay. As it decomposes, it starves the surrounding waters of oxygen. This creates hypoxic con...
The Bay has struggled with pollution for decades, prompting cleanup efforts since as early as the 1960’s. In December 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) in conjunction with the six Bay states and D.C. Its goal was to reduce the maximum amount of nutrient pollution released in...
According to Chesapeake Progress, a group that monitors the Bay’s progress towards the 2025 deadline, nearly half the nutrients that entered the Bay in 2021 came from agricultural run-off. Fertilizers and chicken manure make their way into the watershed during storms or seep into groundwater that ultimately gets into the Chesapeake. But wastewater ...
To make matters worse, climate change is exacerbating the Bay’s struggles. Wetter and more frequent storms means increased farm and city runoff; flushing more nutrients and sediment into the bay. Also, water temperature is rising. According to the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, the summertime water temperature in the Bay has risen by 2℉ sin...
Jun 6, 2023 · Chesapeake Bay and its watershed are a complex ecosystem, which is reflected in many facets, including the spatial and temporal variability in nutrient inputs, the lag times in groundwater and soils, the water-quality patterns in the rivers and the Bay, the residence time and mixing in the tidal waters, and the underlying controls (physical vs. biogeochemical; Ator et al., 2020; Ator et al ...
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Mar 12, 2015 · Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States and a vital ecological and economic resource. The bay and its tributaries have been degraded in recent decades by excessive nitrogen and phosphorus in the water column, however, which cause harmful algal blooms and decreased water clarity, submerged aquatic vegetation, and dissolved oxygen.
Jan 26, 2021 · 5522 Research Park Drive. Baltimore, MD 21228. Contact Pubs Warehouse. The Chesapeake Bay Program maintains an extensive nontidal monitoring network, measuring nitrogen and phosphorus (nutrients) at more than 100 locations on rivers and streams in the watershed. Data from these locations are used by United States Geological Survey to assess the ...
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Jun 10, 2024 · Water quality monitoring is not directly used to evaluate progress because there are natural year-to-year fluctuations in nutrient runoff. Years with more rainfall have more runoff into rivers, while dry years have less. Also, it often takes many years before runoff control actions impact water quality.
