Florence Bascom Geoscience Center

Stream-restoration practices are widely used throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed to improve stream health and function, but research into their effectiveness is limited in agricultural settings. A study in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, suggests that stream-restoration practices can significantly reduce streambank erosion and enhance floodplain deposition, changes that can reduce in-stream...

Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts are focused on reducing nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads to the estuary. A new synthesis of existing long-term records of suspended-sediment concentrations suggests that only a limited amount of watershed sediment is currently transported by rivers past the tidal freshwater zone and into saltier waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Large floods on the Potomac River in Washington D.C. can be documented as early as 1784, and based on historical data and recent measurements, have occurred with increasing frequency since the mid-19th century. Human modifications to the Potomac estuary since Washington D.C. was established as the Federal capital, as well as increasingly heavy rainfall and land clearance in the watershed, likely...