Este informe proporciona una evaluación transparente, oportuna, y geográficamente detallada de la bahía de Chesapeake y su cuenca. Desde 2016, UMCES ha involucrado a las partes interesadas de toda la cuenca para transformar el informe en una evaluación de la salud de la cuenca de Chesapeake. Los indicadores de la bahía evalúan la salud del ecosistema acuático, mientras que los indicadores de la cuenca hidrográfica cubren las condiciones ecológicas, sociales, y económicas.

On April 1, 2025, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) co-hosted the first joint Chesapeake Bay Report Card Networking Meeting at CBF’s Annapolis headquarters. Over 30 stakeholders from nonprofits, government, academia, and community groups gathered to advance a shared vision for more inclusive, responsive, transparent, and collaborative socio-environmental reporting across the watershed.

Reductions of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads have been the focus of watershed restoration in many regions for improving water quality, including the Chesapeake Bay. Watershed models and riverine monitoring data can provide important information on the progress of load reductions but do not always generate consistent interpretations.

Seasonal hypoxia (dissolved oxygen [DO] levels ≤ 2 mg/l) poses a severe threat to coastal ecosystems globally, including the largest estuary in the United States, the Chesapeake Bay. This V-shaped drowned river valley features shallow flanks, where the deepest waters experience persistently low DO levels typically initiated during the spring and ending in late summer or early autumn. Reports on low DO conditions in the Chesapeake Bay date back over a century.

Many coastal ecosystems have suffered from cultural eutrophication and dead zones. In the Chesapeake Bay, water quality degradation is manifested in low dissolved oxygen, poor water clarity, and decreased submerged aquatic vegetation acreage.

Many estuaries, including Chesapeake Bay, have suffered from undesirable conditions of algae blooms, poor water clarity, and low dissolved oxygen (DO). To better understand the status and trends of DO criteria attainment deficit (AD), we conducted a comprehensive assessment using monitoring data in the period of 1985–2022 and focused on the comparison of trends among 13 tidal systems.

From 2022-2023, the COAST Card project held a series of listening sessions to stimulate community engagement throughout the Potomac Watershed. This poster summarizes the results of the activities at those listening sessions.

The partners of the Chesapeake Bay are investing billions of dollars in the restoration of critical habitats to improve conditions for people and living resources throughout the Bay and its watershed. However, the recent proliferation of invasive Ictalurus furcatus (blue catfish) in the Chesapeake Bay’s major rivers has the potential to disrupt these restoration efforts and limit the full potential improvement of the ecosystem.

The Chesapeake Bay Partnership is implementing conservation practices (CPs) throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed to reduce nutrient and sediment delivery to the Bay. This study intends to provide an integrated and detailed understanding of how local streams respond to these CP-driven management efforts. The publication can also be found on the USGS website here.

This report card provides a transparent, timely, and geographically detailed assessment of Chesapeake Bay and its Watershed. Since 2016, UMCES has engaged stakeholders throughout the watershed to transform the report card into an evaluation of the Chesapeake Watershed health. Watershed health includes traditional ecological indicators, but also economic and societal indicators.