Fish, Streams, and Water Quality
Fish, Streams, and Water Quality
Enhanced Understanding of Factors Affecting Stream Condition Can Improve Restoration Outcomes
The Chesapeake Bay watershed supports important recreational and commercial fisheries, but many are declining due to poor water quality, loss of quality habitat and increased invasive species. The USGS science activities are improving the understanding of how restoration and conservation efforts, along with land-use and climate change, are affecting conditions for fish, wildlife, and people.
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Changing Freshwater Flows Affect Fish Populations in the Potomac River
Issue: Millions of people rely on the Potomac River for drinking water and recreational opportunities. The Potomac is Maryland’s most popular freshwater fishing destination, and the second largest river that enters the Chesapeake Bay. Restoring fisheries is also an important goal for the Chesapeake Bay Partnership restoration efforts.
USGS updates trends for nutrients and sediment in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
Issue: The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) nontidal network (NTN) consists of more than 100 stations throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Monitoring of nutrients, sediment, and flow is conducted to provide estimates of loads and trends in the watershed. The CBP uses the results to focus restoration strategies and track progress towards meeting nutrients and suspended-sediment reduction goals.
Projecting stream conditions under future land-use and climate scenarios
Issue: Global change, particularly changes in land use and climate, is dramatically altering stream conditions throughout the world. Healthy streams are important for freshwater fisheries, wildlife, and public recreation. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) has a goal of improving the health of streams throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which includes an outcome of improving the condition of 10...
USGS leads STAC report on water clarity changes over the past 30 years in Chesapeake Bay
Water clarity is widely recognized as an important indicator of the health and trophic state of aquatic ecosystems and is a key management target given the limit it imposes on the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV).
Targeted management of a small number of catchments may help reduce nitrogen loading to Chesapeake Bay
Largest projected reductions associated with decreasing agricultural fertilizer application
Refined Model Provides a Screening Tool to Understand Exposure to Contaminants from Incidental Wastewater Reuse
Refinement of the existing national-scale “de facto reuse incidence in our nation’s consumable supply” (DRINCS) model, complemented by field measurements, provides a screening tool to understand human and wildlife exposure to toxicants and pathogens associated with the incidental reuse of treated wastewater in the Shenandoah River watershed. The model results can be accessed in a companion web...
New Insights on using Green Stormwater Infrastructure to Reduce Suburban Runoff
The Issue with Runoff Across the United States, suburban development is replacing agricultural and forested lands. In urban and suburban areas, large amounts of stormwater runoff are generated from rooftops and roadways during rain events. Runoff is quickly piped to streams and rivers, leading to flash flooding, stream bank erosion, and damages to stream health. Reducing nutrients, sediment, and...
Record Freshwater Flow in Water Year 2019 Affects Conditions in the Chesapeake Bay
The U.S Geological Survey (USGS) reports that freshwater flow into the Chesapeake Bay during water year (WY) 2019 was the highest flow on record (fig. 1). The record freshwater flow washes more pollutants into the Chesapeake Bay and affects dissolved oxygen and habitat conditions for oysters, crabs, and finfish. The 2019 water year is the period from October 1, 2018, through September 30, 2019...
Improving Our Understanding and Helping with Water Quality Improvements
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.
“Who Done it”? Environmental DNA (eDNA) for Determining Fecal Contamination Source
By Kay Briggs and Vivian Nolan
