Factors Affecting Water Quality

USGS conducted synoptic sampling of major-ion chemistry and the nitrogen and oxygen isotopic composition of nitrate in Fishing Creek during base flow to evaluate the occurrence and distribution of nutrients and to characterize biogeochemical processes.

Stream ecosystems support vital resources that may be jeopardized by climate change and climate stressors such as drought.

The findings of the study highlight that management practices can have both hidden costs and benefits to fish and macroinvertebrates depending on regional and local factors like how many and what type of management practices are implemented.

The Susquehanna River is the predominant source of freshwater and nutrients entering the Chesapeake Bay.

About the Research The Geospatial Analyses and Applications Core Technology Team (CTT) as part of the Environmental Health Program collaborates with teams across USGS to develop and apply geospatial analytical methods to answer broad-scale questions about source-sink and cause-effect relationships between contaminants and vulnerable communities.

Issue : Degraded water quality and ecology in urban streams has been widely documented, but explanations of changing conditions over time are often unavailable. A 15-year collaborative urban stream monitoring effort between the Fairfax County Stormwater Planning Division and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is ongoing and has begun to shed light on this complex issue. In a new USGS report by...

Issue: Floodplains provide important services to people by retaining sediments, nutrients, and floodwaters, thereby improving water quality and reducing flooding impacts. Having information on how the monetary benefit that floodplains provide varies across the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River watersheds helps resource managers describe the benefits that floodplains provide in their current state...

USGS provides monitoring, analysis, modeling and research on streams and water quality to better understand the fate and transport of nutrients and sediment to the Susquehanna and other rivers, and their tributaries, and eventually to the Chesapeake Bay. Additional research focuses on emerging contaminants and other stressors that effect human and aquatic life in the watershed and estuary.

Issue: Adaptive management in support of Chesapeake Bay restoration is complicated by uncertainty about the effects of agricultural management practices on water quality. Despite increasing investment, effects of agricultural conservation practices on regional water quality remain difficult to quantify due to factors such as groundwater travel times, varying modes-of-action, and the general lack...

Issue: The Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW) is experiencing effects of climate (warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns) and land-use/land-cover (LULC; transition from forest or agriculture to developed lands) change, and these trends are likely to continue under future scenarios of warming and population growth. Stream biodiversity may be vulnerable to ongoing and future climate...

We will develop a vulnerability assessment R Shiny web application and present to stakeholders. The stakeholder feedback will be summarized into a one page ‘lessons learned’ document that will assist researchers in designing effective climate change visualizations and an R markdown ‘quick start’ guide on R Shiny applications.

Issue: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been manufactured and used in a variety of industries in the United States since the 1940s. PFAS are ubiquitous and persistent in the environment and have the potential to have adverse human and ecological health effects. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partnerships has concerns about how PFAS will affect the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The CBP...