Oxygen Dynamics in Chesapeake Bay: A Synthesis of Recent Research

Covering more than 4,400 square miles, the Chesapeake Bay is the nation's largest estuary, its most complex, and historically its most productive. Increasingly over this last half century, the Chesapeake has been subjected to the impacts of accelerated population growth, massive volumes of sediment eroding from the 64,000 square mile watershed, human and industrial wastes pumped into the Bay's rivers and streams, and thousands of tons of nutrients annually from agricultural lands, sewage treatment plants, acid rain and ground water. The consequences have been widespread - declines of sea grasses, diminished stocks of commercial fish and shellfish, and degraded water quality. A recurring condition in the Chesapeake Bay - and a measure of the estuary's environmental integrity - has been hypoxia, the depletion of oxygen in bottom waters, beginning in spring and lasting through summer. In 1985, the Maryland and Virginia Sea Grant programs undertook a long-tern program of integrated research aimed at detailing how biochemical and physical processes regulate dissolved oxygen in the Chesapeake Bay. A number of the scientific and management findings summarized in this book are already playing important roles in targeting research needs and assisting resource management agencies.