Table of Contents
What are the characteristics of the Chesapeake Bay?
In general, the lower Chesapeake Bay is salty and the upper Bay is fresh. Salinity gradually decreases as you move north, farther away from the ocean, and increases as you move south. Salinity is highest at the mouth of the Bay—averaging 25 to 30 ppt—where water from the Atlantic Ocean enters.
What is the Chesapeake Bay classified as?
estuary
The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary: a body of water where fresh and salt water mix. It is the largest of more than 100 estuaries in the United States and third largest in the world. The Bay itself is about 200 miles long, stretching from Havre de Grace, Maryland, to Virginia Beach, Virginia.
What is the population of Chesapeake Bay?
In 2020, an estimated 18.4 million people lived in the Chesapeake Bay watershed: a 0.23% increase from 2019. Experts predict the watershed’s population will increase to over 22 million by the year 2050.
How does population affect the Chesapeake Bay?
How does population growth impact the Chesapeake Bay? Each person that lives in this region affects the Chesapeake Bay: we consume natural resources; we pollute the air, land and water; and we alter the landscape to fit our needs. The health of our waterways, therefore, is directly tied to population growth.
What is the density of the Chesapeake Bay?
Fresh water, like you would find at the head of the Bay and its tidal rivers, contains few salts (less than 0.5 ppt) and is less dense than the ocean-strength salt water at the mouth of the Bay, which averages 25 to 30 ppt.
What is Chesapeake Bay known for?
The Chesapeake Bay has the largest land-to-water ratio (14:1) of any coastal water body in the world. More than 100,000 streams and rivers thread through the watershed and eventually flow into the Bay. Everyone within the Chesapeake Bay watershed is just minutes from one of the streams or rivers.
What is Chesapeake known for?
Chesapeake is consistently ranked by the FBI as one of the five safest cities of its size in the country. Chesapeake consists of more than 353 square miles of land area, which makes us the 11th largest city in the U.S. Chesapeake contains more miles of deepwater canals than any other city in the country.
How many people live within the Chesapeake Bay watershed?
Human Impact. Nearly 17 million people live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and demographers estimate that the watershed’s population is growing by about 157,000 residents per year. At this rate, the population will reach 20 million by 2030. A growing population creates issues that threaten the Bay ecosystem.
Why is Chesapeake Bay so vulnerable to pollution?
What makes Chesapeake Bay so vulnerable? What phenomenon is growing in the Bay? Dead zones, lack of oxygen from over input of nitrogen and phosphorus. How is nitrogen removed from sewage?
How does the Chesapeake Bay affect the environment?
New homes, businesses, and roads replace forests and fields. Lands that once absorbed rainfall have been transformed into impervious surfaces such as parking lots and roads that increase stormwater runoff—often full of sediment, excess nutrients, and chemical contaminants—flowing into the Bay and its tributaries.
Where is the densest water found in the Chesapeake Bay?
Water Circulation The Bay contains two distinct layers of water. Warmer, less dense freshwater flows near the surface of the Bay from the north to the south and into the Atlantic Ocean. Denser, colder, and saltier ocean water flows near the bottom of the channel from the ocean up into the Bay.
How big is the Chesapeake Bay watershed?
64,000 square miles
The Chesapeake Bay Watershed covers 64,000 square miles; includes parts of six states (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York) and Washington, D.C.; has 11,684 miles of shoreline, including tidal wetlands and islands (that’s more shoreline than the entire West Coast of the United States);