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USGS2021

USGS Chesapeake Science Strategy 2021-2025

The Chesapeake Bay ecosystem is a national treasure that provides almost $100 billion annually of goods and services. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP), is one of the largest federal-state restoration partnerships in the United States and is underpinned by rigorous science. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a pivotal role as a science provider for assessing ecosystem condition and response in the Chesapeake watershed. Despite significant CBP accomplishments, the pressures of climate change and competing demands on land use and change require an acceleration of progress towards the 10 goals in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. USGS Chesapeake studies are increasing efforts to provide integrated science and are engaging stakeholders to inform the multi-faceted restoration and conservation decisions to improve habitat for fish and waterfowl, and socio-economic benefits to the 18 million people living in the watershed.

Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virgin↗
USGS2015

U.S. Geological Survey Chesapeake science strategy, 2015-2025—Informing ecosystem management of America’s largest estuary

Executive Summary The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has the critical role of providing scientific information to improve the understanding and management of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The USGS works with Federal, State, and academic science partners to provide research and monitoring, and communicate results of these activities to enhance ecosystem management for both the Chesapeake and other National ecosystems. The USGS Chesapeake Science Strategy was prepared to guide science activities to address the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement (2014–2025), to support the Department of the Interior (DOI) involvement in the Bay restoration efforts, and align with the USGS Mission Area (MA) Science strategies. The Chesapeake Bay is our Nation’s largest estuary, and provides critical goods and services to the people, fish, and wildlife that use the 64,000-square-mile watershed. The Chesapeake Bay watershed contains over 3,600 species of fish, wildlife, and plants and provides spawning grounds for many ecologically and economically important species including striped bass and blue crabs. The Bay watershed lies in the heart of the Atlantic Flyway and has 29 species of waterfowl, about 1 million of which winter in the region. The size of the Chesapeake seafood harvest is third in the Nation, only behind the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Along with agricultural production, tourism, and recreation, the estimated economic value of the services from the Chesapeake Bay watershed is about $100 billion annually. However, the health of the Bay ecosystem began to decline at the beginning of the 20th century due to overfishing and increasing human population and associated land change. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) is the Federal-State cooperative effort that started in 1983 to restore the Bay and watershed. Given the ecological and economic importance of the Chesapeake ecosystem, President Obama issued an Executive Order (EO) in 2009 for increased Federal leadership in the CBP to enhance the pace of restoration, and the supporting strategy was released in 2010. The EO directed the Federal Government, including the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), represented by the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), and the USGS, to expand its efforts and increase leadership to restore the Bay and its watershed. The USGS and other Federal agencies expanded their activities in 2011 to meet the President’s Chesapeake EO. Since the EO was released, there have been several important changes in the USGS, DOI, and the CBP including: (1) the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, (2) increased DOI leadership in the CBP, and (3) the release of the USGS MA science strategies. The EO strategy served as a foundation for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement that was signed in 2014 by the CBP Partners, and has goals and outcomes to be met by 2025. The USGS developed the Chesapeake Science Strategy to guide our activities to address the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, DOI leadership in the CBP, and USGS MA strategies. Improving the understanding of fish and wildlife population and health, and the factors affecting their condition is the emphasis of the Strategy. The science focuses on documenting the critical ecosystem connections in the Chesapeake, and providing implications to enhance decision making for restoration and conservation activities. The revised Strategy has four themes that address 7 of the 10 goals in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement: Enhance science to support restoration, and conservation of fish, wildlife, and critical habitats. Characterize and explain changes in water quality, and its effect on freshwater and estuarine ecosystems. Assess and forecast effects of climate and land change on ecosystem conditions. Synthesize and provide information to support ecosystem management. The structure and function of biological communities of the Bay and its watershed are extremely complex and are affected by a variety of stressors and conditions. To better define the issues being addressed, the USGS has developed cross-cutting questions that define some of the most important scientific challenges where multiple disciplines and collaborators are needed to address an issue. The initial questions include: How do land and climate changes affect freshwater fish communities, health, and habitats? What are the relations among land use, water quality, contaminants, and the health of fish and wildlife? How are coastal wetlands and their carrying capacity for waterbirds affected by changing climate and land use? How is the water quality of rivers and estuaries responding to restoration actions, and changing land use? What are some of the best opportunities for management actions to benefit multiple restoration outcomes?

Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virgin↗
USGS2007

Synthesis of U.S. Geological Survey science for the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and implications for environmental management

The purpose of this report is to present a synthesis of the USGS Chesapeake Bay science related to the 2001-06 goals and provide implications for environmental management. The report provides USGS findings that address the science needs of the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) restoration goals and includes summaries of 1. land-use change; 2. water quality in the watershed, including nutrients, sediment, and contaminants; 3. long-term changes in climate and estuarine water quality; 4. estuary habitats, focusing on submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) and tidal wetlands; and 5. factors affecting fish and waterbird populations.

Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virgin↗
USGS2010

Expanded USGS science in the Chesapeake Bay restoration

In May 2009, the President issued Executive Order (EO) 13508 for Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration. For the first time since the creation of the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) in 1983, the full weight of the Federal Government will be used to address the challenges facing the Chesapeake Bay. The EO directs the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), represented by the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), to expand its efforts and increase leadership to restore the Bay and its watershed. A Federal Leadership Committee (FLC) was established to ensure coordination of Federal activities and consult with states and stakeholders to align restoration efforts.

Chesapeake Bay Watershed↗
USGS2012

Chesapeake Bay Watershed - Protecting the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers through science, restoration, and partnership

The Chesapeake Bay, the Nation's largest estuary, has been degraded due to the impact of human-population increase, which has doubled since 1950, resulting in degraded water quality, loss of habitat, and declines in populations of biological communities. Since the mid-1980s, the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP), a multi-agency partnership which includes the Department of Interior (DOI), has worked to restore the Bay ecosystem. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has the critical role of providing unbiased scientific information that is utilized to document and understand ecosystem change to help assess the effectiveness of restoration strategies in the Bay and its watershed. The USGS revised its Chesapeake Bay science plan for 2006-2011 to address the collective needs of the CBP, DOI, and USGS with a mission to provide integrated science for improved understanding and management of the Bay ecosystem. The USGS science themes for this mission are: Causes and consequences of land-use change; Impact of climate change and associated hazards; Factors affecting water quality and quantity; Ability of habitat to support fish and bird populations; and Synthesis and forecasting to improve ecosystem assessment, conservation, and restoration.

Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virgin↗
USGS2002

The U.S. Geological Survey and the Chesapeake Bay – The role of science in environmental restoration

The Chesapeake Bay is the Nation's largest estuary and historically supported one of the most productive fisheries in the world. In addition to supporting aquatic communities and wildlife, the bay's watershed serves the economic and recreational needs of 15 million people. The fertile soils of the watershed support significant agricultural production. Unfortunately, the commercial, economic, and recreational value of the bay and its watershed has been degraded by poor water quality, loss of habitat, and overharvesting of living resources. Since the early 1980's, the Chesapeake Bay Program, which is a partnership among Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, the Federal Government, and the Chesapeake Bay Commission, has been formulating and implementing restoration goals to restore living resources, minimize habitat loss, and reduce the amount of nutrients, sediment, and toxic substances entering the bay. The U.S. Geological Survey has the critical role of providing unbiased scientific information to be used in helping to formulate, implement, and assess the effectiveness of restoration goals in the bay and its watershed.

Chesapeake Bay watershed↗
USGS2024

The state of the science and practice of stream restoration in the Chesapeake: Lessons learned to inform better implementation, assessment and outcomes

The Chesapeake Bay Program’s (CBP) Science and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) organized and led a workshop on the science and practice of stream restoration in order to summarize the state of knowledge in order to identify ways to improve stream restoration outcomes. The workshop identified a general framework for explaining the main factors leading to stream restoration outcomes: stream degradation has occurred, leading to regulatory and policy motivations that prioritize project goals, which leads to restoration approaches, assessment and monitoring efforts, and ultimately stream restoration outcomes. In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, stream restoration often occurs in response to Clean Water Act (CWA) mandates to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads to the Bay. Reviews of stream restoration outcomes summarized at the workshop showed that, in general, stream restorations have led to minimal improvement to stream aquatic biota, effective ‘stabilization’ of channel form over time, moderate improvements to water quality, and short-term negative impacts to riparian vegetation. The fundamental finding of the workshop was that often the primary goal of stream restoration projects is to improve geomorphic stability in the restored reach and downstream water quality, and not to improve local ecological conditions through ‘uplift’ (improvement of one or more ecosystem functions through a restorative activity; a term defined in Appendix D), and therefore these projects often do not improve aquatic macroinvertebrate or fish communities. This conflict in goals is a shortcoming of the currently most common regulatory driver for stream restoration (reducing downstream loads of N, P, and sediment) that could be addressed directly through diversifying goals to include biotic uplift, as biological benefit is an assumed condition for the permitting and crediting of stream restoration projects. It is also likely that current understanding of stressors and drivers of stream ecosystem health is insufficient, and that reach-scale restoration focused on geomorphic restoration is not removing the actual sources of stream health impairment that may arise in the upstream watershed. More science could help to identify how to improve the ecological condition of streams through management. The outcome of stream restoration monitoring has revealed that while geomorphic and hydrodynamic functions of stream restoration projects may be achieved, biotic stream function improvements remain elusive. As such, ensuring uplift may be achieved by avoiding restoration projects that risk resources in higher-quality streams and riparian corridors. Reach-scale restoration often does not effectively mitigate the watershed-scale stressors of stream ecosystems. If a desired outcome of stream restoration includes ecological uplift, then focusing efforts on improving stream ecology could help meet that goal.

Chesapeake Bay watershed↗
USGS1974

Measurement in a marine environment using low cost sensors of temperature and dissolved oxygen

Continuous records of physical parameters of the marine environment are difficult as well as expensive to obtain. This paper describes preliminary results of an investigative program with the purpose of developing low cost time integrating measurement and averaging devices for water temperature and dissolved oxygen. Measurements were made in an estuarine area of the Chesapeake Bay over two week periods. With chemical thermometers average water temperature for the two week period was found to be equal to average water temperature measured with thermocouples plus or minus 1.0 C. The slow diffusion of oxygen through the semipermiable sides of plastic bottles permitted the use of water filled bottles to obtain averaged oxygen measurements. Oxygen measurements for two week averaging times using 500 ml polyethylene bottles were found to vary from conventionally measured and averaged dissolved oxygen by about 1.8 mg/l.

Chesapeake Bay↗
USGS1967

Case report: Coccidiosis and lead poisoning in Canada geese

Four dead Canada geese (Branta canadensis L.) collected at the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware were found to have both marked duodenal lesions of coccidiosis and high levels of lead in the liver. Although only one goose had lead shot in the gizzard, all four had levels of lead in the liver suggestive of lead poisoning.

Chesapeake Science↗
USGS1966

The status of the osprey in Cape May County, New Jersey, between 1939 and 1963

Comparison is made of the population of ospreys in Cape May County, N.J., in the late 1930's with that in 1963, and with a population of these birds at Tilghman Island, Maryland. Production of young per nest in the 1930's compares favorably with the production of young in the populations examined in 1963. It is suggested, based on historical evidence, that a decline in the numbers of these birds has been going on for some time. Acceleration of this decline in New Jersey is more obvious in the years covered by this paper.

Chesapeake Science↗
USGS1969

Epifauna and thermal additions in the upper Patuxent River estuary

In the upper Patuxent Estuary environmental changes in temperature, salinity, and turbidity over a 5-year period are linked to changes in epifaunal production and species distribution. During 1967 a series of monthly panels showed dry weight production averaged 2.8 times greater in a steam electric station heated effluent than in the intake. A downriver shift in epifanual production in 1967 and changes in species abundance was noted and attributed to natural changes in salinity and turbidity and man-induced changes in temperature.

Maryland↗
USGS1969

Thermal additions and epifaunal organisms at Chalk Point, Maryland

Two sets of test panels, one in the intake and the other in the effluent canal of a steam-generating station, were submerged at monthly intervals in 1967. The panels were analyzed for epifaunal species composition, abundance, seasonal attachment, and total biomass production. The average surface-water temperature rose 6.3 C above ambient on the effluent side, and the biomass production of the epifaunal organisms found there increased nearly three times that of the intake. An earlier and larger set of some attached organisms occurred in the effluent, but there was little change in species composition between the intake and effluent canals. During the summer when high surface-water temperatures prevailed, there seemed to be a reduced number and/or disappearance of flatworms and colonial hydroids, along with increased barnacle growth.

Maryland↗
USGS1961

Trichomonad infection in mourning doves, Zenaidura macroura, in Maryland

During the 10-year period 1950-1960 the incidence of Trichomonas gallinae among several series of mourning doves shot or trapped in Maryland has varied from zero to 12 1/2 percent. Prior to 1959, all isolations of T. gallinae from doves during such surveys had been from birds with well-developed lesions. In 1959, trichomonads were demonstrated in three of 54 normal hunter-killed doves examined in Howard County. The incidence of trichomonad infection among doves which were submitted to the laboratory because they were obviously diseased was much higher. Of 44 clinically ill doves submitted during the period 1950-1960,25 were found to be infected with T. gallinae. In the Maryland area the incidence of trichomonad infection among mourning doves appears to be low, but when infection does occur it is usually due to a pathogenic strain which produces a typical fatal canker.

Maryland↗
USGS1971

Synecology of a Virginia salt marsh

In the spring and summer of 1964 a salt marsh in Gloucester County, Virginia, was analyzed using random quadrat sampling. Synthetic treatments were employed to evaluate data and were correlated with observed differences in elevation. Floristic data indicate the Virginia salt marshes show closer similarity to marshes north of Chesapeake Bay than those south of Chesapeake Bay. Correlation of floristic data with observed differences in elevation indicates that zonation in the marsh is dependent upon differences in elevation or some environmental factor correlated with elevation differences. Observations of sedimentation and erosion in localized areas indicate that the marsh is in a constant state of change, with extensive areas undergoing both succession and regression.

Chesapeake Science↗
USGS1971

Hawk migration over White Marsh, Maryland

The average number of hawks observed per hour in autumn migration between 1951-1954 and 1958-1961 at White Marsh, Maryland, was compared. The counts indicated that the status of the ten species observed may be divided into three categories: (1) relatively stable species (red-tailed hawk), (2) declining species (sparrow hawk, red-shouldered hawk, osprey, marsh hawk, and broad-winged hawk), and (3) rapidly declining species (peregrine falcon, Cooper?s hawk, bald eagle, and sharp-shinned hawk). The findings from this study are in agreement with the available literature and the status of the populations appears to be related to the food habits of the species.

Chesapeake Science↗