Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States and is one of the most productive bodies of water in the world. By area, the Gulf of San Lorenzo is clearly the largest estuary in North America, with an area of 60,000 square miles (155,000 km) compared to 4,480 square miles (11,600 km) in Chesapeake Bay. The bay, with an intricate and fractal coastline of 11,684 miles, could well rank first by this criterion; a quick measurement of the coast of the Gulf of San Lorenzo with Google Earth yielded a length of 1,994 miles.
Enable JS and turn off any ad blockers. Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the country and the third largest of the world. An estuary is a semi-enclosed coastal body of water with a free connection to the open ocean where fresh water from inland rivers mixes with saltwater from the ocean. Chesapeake Bay is the largest of more than 100 estuaries in the United States.
About half of the volume of water in the bay comes from saltwater in the Atlantic Ocean. The other half flows into the bay from its enormous hydrographic basin of 64,000. square miles. Because of this mixture of fresh and salt water, the salinity of the bay increases gradually as you move from north to south.
Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the country. Its 64,000 square mile watershed encompasses one of the most economically important regions in the United States. More than 18 million people live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Chesapeake produces about 500 million pounds of seafood each year, creating jobs in commercial and recreational fishing and strengthening the regional economy.
Chesapeake Bay, the largest cove on the Atlantic coastal plain of the eastern United States. Created by the submersion of the lower reaches of the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, it is 193 miles (311 km) long and 3 to 25 miles (5 to 40 km) wide. The southern part of the bay borders Virginia and the northern part is bordered by Maryland. Its entrance from the Atlantic is flanked by Cape Charles to the north and Cape Henry to the south.
In addition to the Susquehanna, the main rivers that flow into the bay are the James, the York, the Rappahannock, the Potomac and the Patuxent, to the west, and the Wicomico, the Nanticoke, the Choptank and the Chester, to the east. Most of the bay's irregular eastern coastline is low and swampy, while the straighter western coast is formed, at great distances, by cliffs. During the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the bay was crossed by passenger steamboats and package lines that connected the different cities of the bay, in particular the Baltimore Steam Packet Company (Old Bay Line). Algae prevent sunlight from reaching the bottom of the bay while they are alive and deoxygenate the water in the bay when it dies and rots.
In September 1781, during the War of Independence, the British sank more than a dozen ships in the York River, near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Over time, communities surrounding Chesapeake Bay formed confederations such as the Powhatan, Piscataway and Nanticoke. On average, the depth of the bay is 21 feet (6.4 m), including tributaries; more than 24 percent of the bay is less than 6 feet (2 m) of depth. The Chesapeake Bay watershed has been heavily affected by natural forces such as erosion, tides, and a history of hurricanes and other storms.
Researchers are working in Chesapeake Bay to gather information on water quality, the abundance of plants and animals, coastal erosion, tides, waves and the proliferation of harmful algae. The European colonists who populated Chesapeake Bay in the late 17th and early 18th centuries brought industrial agricultural techniques with them. Individual, population and ecosystem effects of hypoxia in a benthic bivalve dominant in the Chesapeake Bay. NOAA also leads the Chesapeake Bay Program educational task force, which provides expertise and coordination that lead to policies that support environmental literacy throughout the watershed.
Chesapeake Bay plays an extremely important role in the economies of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, in addition to the ecosystem. NOAA works with other agencies and organizations to restore oyster reefs in the Maryland and Virginia waters of Chesapeake Bay. Starting in 1978, numerous expeditions were launched in the hope of successfully discovering what was left of the Bay of Chesapeake. And Chesapeake Bay can expect an additional 1.3 to 5.2 foot sea level rise over the next century.