Land Use, Change, and Forecasting

The Chesapeake Bay Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) database was developed by the University of Vermont’s Spatial Analysis Laboratory in cooperation with Chesapeake Conservancy (CC) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The high-resolution land data were developed as part of a 6-year Cooperative Agreement between Chesapeake Conservancy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and a separate...

Issue: In March 2021, the Principals’ Staff Committee (PSC) requested a study and recommendations on how to enhance the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) monitoring networks to improve decision-making for the goals of the Chesapeake Watershed Agreement. The monitoring networks include (1) CBP core networks supported primarily by EPA CBP funding (i.e., Tidal Water Quality, Nontidal Water Quality...

Issue Informing restoration across the nearly 64,000 square miles of the Chesapeake Bay watershed is an enormous challenge that requires detailed and accessible landscape data. Among the most pressing challenges being addressed by the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partnership are: → Water pollution from agriculture and animal waste, → Conversion of critical habitat like forest and marshes for new...

Issue: The natural cycle of water flow, known as the flow regime, is one of the primary habitat conditions needed for healthy biological communities in streams. However, human activities have drastically altered the natural flow regime of most of the world’s rivers and streams, including those in the Chesapeake watershed, which has resulted in changes not only to the natural habitat but also...

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...

Chesapeake Bay Program video on Population Growth

A list of Chesapeake Bay Program videos highlighting USGS Chesapeake Bay Activities.

Increased acquisition of lidar in the Chesapeake Watershed The Chesapeake Bay Program has a critical need for enhanced land cover and land-use information to better inform restoration and conservation efforts throughout the watershed. An important component of land information is more detailed land elevation data, which are collected using lidar ( l ight d etection a nd r anging), a remote sensing...

Issue: Urban stormwater runoff is a rapidly increasing source of pollutants to Chesapeake Bay. It contributes on average 16 percent of the nitrogen, 16 percent of the phosphorus, and 25 percent of the sediment load to the bay annually. Urban stormwater best management practices (BMPs) (fig. 1) have been used in an effort to reduce the volume and improve the quality of stormwater runoff entering...

By the Numbers: 23 The maximum temperature, in degrees Celsius, that brook trout can tolerate.

The USGS leads the effort through collaboration with Chesapeake Partners to monitor land change that can be used to assess the impacts land conversion on water quality, healthy watersheds, and communities

U.S. Geological Survey research, published in the journal Climatic Change