Factors Affecting Water Quality

Issue: Degraded water quality and ecology in urban streams has been widely documented, but explanations of changing conditions over time are often unavailable. A 15-year collaborative urban stream monitoring effort between the Fairfax County Stormwater Planning Division and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is ongoing and has begun to shed light on this complex issue. In a new USGS report by...

Issue: Floodplains provide important services to people by retaining sediments, nutrients, and floodwaters, thereby improving water quality and reducing flooding impacts. Having information on how the monetary benefit that floodplains provide varies across the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River watersheds helps resource managers describe the benefits that floodplains provide in their current state...

USGS provides monitoring, analysis, modeling and research on streams and water quality to better understand the fate and transport of nutrients and sediment to the Susquehanna and other rivers, and their tributaries, and eventually to the Chesapeake Bay. Additional research focuses on emerging contaminants and other stressors that effect human and aquatic life in the watershed and estuary.

Issue: Adaptive management in support of Chesapeake Bay restoration is complicated by uncertainty about the effects of agricultural management practices on water quality. Despite increasing investment, effects of agricultural conservation practices on regional water quality remain difficult to quantify due to factors such as groundwater travel times, varying modes-of-action, and the general lack...

Issue: The Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW) is experiencing effects of climate (warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns) and land-use/land-cover (LULC; transition from forest or agriculture to developed lands) change, and these trends are likely to continue under future scenarios of warming and population growth. Stream biodiversity may be vulnerable to ongoing and future climate...

Issue: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been manufactured and used in a variety of industries in the United States since the 1940s. PFAS are ubiquitous and persistent in the environment and have the potential to have adverse human and ecological health effects. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partnerships has concerns about how PFAS will affect the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The CBP...

USGS is providing data and analyses to assess stream restoration effectiveness in Turtle Creek, Union County, Pennsylvania, by measuring differences in sediment erosion and deposition in restored and eroded stream reaches.

Issue Partners in the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) are implementing best management practices (BMPs) to prevent nutrient and sediment from entering waterways across the Chesapeake watershed and reduce loads to the Bay. In addition to reducing nutrients, CBP partners want to better understand how BMPs can provide additional benefits for addressing toxic contaminants, such as pesticides, hormones...

Issue: As Chesapeake Bay Program partners work to reduce pollution, knowing sources of sediment, phosphorus, and nitrogen transported to the Bay is critical for effective and efficient management. Streams and their associated floodplains have an important influence on the transport of nutrients and sediment through the Chesapeake watershed and into tidal waters. The USGS is conducting...

Issue: The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) needs to accelerate progress on multiple outcomes to meet deadlines in the Chesapeake Watershed Agreement. The CBP partnership spends about $1.2B annually on activities toward achieving the Watershed Agreement, with a focus on water-quality improvement. Recent funding increases, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, provide additional opportunities to...

The Award USGS received a 2022 Blue Pencil & Gold Screen Award, in the category of Technical/Statistical Reports, from the National Association of Government Communications (NAGC) for the U.S. Geological Survey Circular titled Nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed—A Century of Change, 1950–2050. Each year the NAGC recognizes products that provide excellence in government communications and the...

Issue: Managing stormwater runoff in developing areas