Publications
The USGS publishes peer-reviewed reports and journal articles which are used by Chesapeake Bay Program resource managers and policy makers to make science-based decisions for ecosystem conservation and restoration. Use the Search box below to find publications on selected topics.
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Filter Total Items: 899
Employing an ecosystem services framework to deliver decision ready science
Public land managers have limited information to allow for the integration and balancing of multiple objectives in land management decisions including the social (cultural and health), economic (monetary and nonmonetary), and environmental aspects. In this article, we document an approach to consider the many facets of decision making by incorporating them into a decision context using an ecosyst
Authors
Emily J. Pindilli, Dianna M. Hogan, Zhiliang Zhu
Response of nitrogen loading to the Chesapeake Bay to source reduction and land use change scenarios: A SPARROW‐informed analysis
In response to concerns regarding the health of streams and receiving waters, the United States Environmental Protection Agency established a total maximum daily load for nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay watershed for which practices must be in place by 2025 resulting in an expected 25% reduction in load from 2009 levels. The response of total nitrogen (TN) loads delivered to the Bay to nine source
Authors
Matthew P. Miller, Paul D. Capel, Ana M. Garcia, Scott W. Ator
A Generalized Additive Model approach to evaluating water quality: Chesapeake Bay Case Study
Nutrient-reduction efforts have been undertaken in recent decades to mitigate the impacts of eutrophication in coastal and estuarine systems worldwide. To track progress in response to one of these efforts we use Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) to evaluate a diverse suite of water quality constituents over a 32-year period in the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary on the east coast of the United States
Authors
Rebecca Murphy, Elgin Perry, Jon Harcum, Jennifer L. Keisman
Holocene Sea-Level Variability from Chesapeake Bay Tidal Marshes
We reconstructed the last 10,000 years of Holocene relative sea-level rise (RSLR) from sediment core records in near Chesapeake Bay, eastern U.S.A., including new marsh records from the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, Virginia. Results show mean RSLR rates of 2.6 mm yr-1 from 10 to 8 kilo-annum (ka) due to combined final ice-sheet melting during deglaciation and glacio-isostatic adjustment (GIA
Authors
Thomas M. Cronin, Megan K. Clevenger, Neil E. Tibert, Tammy Prescott, Michael Toomey, J. Bradford Hubeny, Mark B. Abbott, Julia Seidenstein, Hannah Whitworth, Samuel R Fisher, Nick Wondolowski, Anna Ruefer
Changes in event‐based streamflow magnitude and timing after suburban development with infiltration‐based stormwater management
Green stormwater infrastructure implementation in urban watersheds has outpaced our understanding of practice effectiveness on streamflow response to precipitation events. Long‐term monitoring of experimental urban watersheds in Clarksburg, Maryland, USA, provided an opportunity to examine changes in event‐based streamflow metrics in two treatment watersheds that transitioned from agriculture to s
Authors
Kristina G. Hopkins, Aditi S. Bhaskar, Sean Woznicki, Rosemary M. Fanelli
Assessing beach and island habitat loss in the Chesapeake Bay and Delmarva coastal bay region, USA, through processing of Landsat TM and OLI imagery: A case study
Beaches and islands provide economic value to humans and critical habitat for breeding and foraging wildlife. These ecosystems, however, are being severely impacted by global climate change and sea level rise through increased erosion and frequency of inundation. The case study presented here aimed to document island loss in the Chesapeake Bay and Delmarva coastal bay region of the United States u
Authors
Paul R. Marban, Jennifer M. Mullinax, Jonathan P. Resop, Diann Prosser
Phosphorus and the Chesapeake Bay: Lingering issues and emerging concerns for agriculture
Hennig Brandt's discovery of phosphorus (P) occurred during the early European colonization of the Chesapeake Bay region. Today, P, an essential nutrient on land and water alike, is one of the principal threats to the health of the bay. Despite widespread implementation of best management practices across the Chesapeake Bay watershed following the implementation in 2010 of a total maximum daily lo
Authors
Peter Kleinman, Rosemary M. Fanelli, Robert M. Hirsch, Anthony R Buda, Zachary M. Easton, Lisa A. Wainger, Chris Brosch, Mark Lowenfish, Amy S. Collick, Adel Shirmohammadi, Kathy Boomer, Jason A. Hubbart, R. B. Bryant, Gary Shenk
The effects of restored hydrologic connectivity on floodplain trapping vs. release of phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment along the Pocomoke River, Maryland USA
River channelization and artificial levees have decreased the hydrologic connectivity of river-floodplain systems around the world. In response, restoration through enhancing connectivity has been advocated to improve the functions of floodplains, but uncertain benefits and the possibility of phosphate release from re-flooded soils has limited implementation. In this study, we measured change in f
Authors
Gregory B. Noe, Kathy Boomer, Jaimie Gillespie, Cliff R. Hupp, Mario Martin-Alciati, Kelly Floro, Edward R. Schenk, Amy K. Jacobs, Steve Strano
Individual behaviour and resource use of thermally stressed brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis portend the conservation potential of thermal refugia
Individual aggression and thermal refuge use were monitored in brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis in a controlled laboratory to determine how fish size and personality influence time spent in forage and thermal habitat patches during periods of thermal stress. On average, larger and more exploratory fish initiated more aggressive interactions and across all fish there was decreased aggression at wa
Authors
Shannon L. White, B.C. Kline, Nathaniel Hitt, Tyler Wagner
Typha (cattail) invasion in North American wetlands: Biology, regional problems, impacts, ecosystem services, and management
Typha is an iconic wetland plant found worldwide. Hybridization and anthropogenic disturbances have resulted in large increases in Typha abundance in wetland ecosystems throughout North America at a cost to native floral and faunal biodiversity. As demonstrated by three regional case studies, Typha is capable of rapidly colonizing habitats and forming monodominant vegetation stands due to traits s
Authors
Sheel Bansal, Shane Lishawa, Sue Newman, Brian Tangen, Douglas Wilcox, Dennis Albert, Michael J. Anteau, Michael J Chimney, Ryann L. Cressey, Edward S. DeKeyser, Kenneth J Elgersam, Sarah A Finkelstein, Joanna Freeland, Richard Grosshans, Page E. Klug, Daniel J Larkin, Beth A. Lawrence, George Linz, Joy Marburger, Gregory B. Noe, Clint R.V. Otto, Nicholas Reo, Jennifer Richards, Curtis J. Richardson, LeRoy Rodgers, Amy J Shrank, Dan Svedarsky, Steven E. Travis, Nancy Tuchman, Arnold van der Valk, Lisamarie Windham-Myers
Toward explaining nitrogen and phosphorus trends in Chesapeake Bay tributaries, 1992-2012
Understanding trends in stream chemistry is critical to watershed management, and often complicated by multiple contaminant sources and landscape conditions changing over varying time scales. We adapted spatially-referenced regression (SPARROW) to infer causes of recent nutrient trends in Chesapeake Bay tributaries by relating observed fluxes during 1992, 2002, and 2012 to contemporary inputs and
Authors
Scott Ator, Ana M. Garcia, Gregory E. Schwarz, Joel Blomquist, Andrew Sekellick
Cryptic introduction of water chestnut (Trapa) in the northeastern United States
Trapa natans, characterized by four-horned fruits, has been recognized as an introduced species in the northeastern United States since the 1920′s. However, in 2014 a two-horned morphotype of Trapa was discovered in the Potomac River in Virginia. As such, we hypothesize the two-horned variety represents a cryptic introduction of a Trapa taxon distinct from the four-horned T. natans previously iden
Authors
Greg Chorak, Lynde Dodd, Nancy B. Rybicki, Kadiera Ingram, Murat Buyukyoruk, Yasuro Kadono, Yuan Yuan Chen, Ryan Thum