Introduction

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 (fig. 1).

Critical knowledge to be delivered to stakeholders includes—

A Holistic Approach to Investigating the Influence of Conservation Practices

Management actions in the Chesapeake Bay watershed primarily focus on landscapes experiencing high nutrient and sediment loads and other forms of ecosystem degradation. These landscapes are targeted for CP implementation. This U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study focuses on the following important Chesapeake Bay watershed landscapes for year-long assessments: pasture in the Shenandoah Valley, row crops in the Delmarva Peninsula, mixed agriculture in the Pennsylvania and Maryland Piedmont, and the developed Maryland-District of Columbia-Virginia corridor (fig. 2).

In each of these landscapes, 30 streams were selected that represent gradients of land-use and the intensity of CP implementation in the upstream watershed. The expectation is that stream responses to CPs depend on the specific characteristics of agriculture and development around the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the stream’s drainage area.

A holistic ecosystem approach is used, measuring the upstream drivers (characteristics of the upstream drainage area, including land use), stressors within the stream, and the ecosystem biotic responses (aquatic and riparian) (fig. 3). This information can show how CPs and land use affect stream ecosystem health, as well as why streams responded, through the identification of stressor responses.

This research can test the expectation as to whether streams with high rates of CP implementation and less-intensive land use in their upstream drainage area have the healthiest streams, if streams with low rates of CP implementation and substantial intensive land use have the least healthy streams, and, in general, if streams with more CP implementation are healthier than streams with less management.

Moving Forward: Analyses and Engagement

Analyses of data collected annually for each of the Chesapeake landscapes studied can determine how much CPs affect local stream-ecosystem health, which stressors negatively affect streams, and which landscape characteristics are associated with better or worse conditions in local streams.

The results of the study can be communicated to stakeholders and landowners through several approaches:

Science and Communication and Synthesis Teams

The stream team principal investigators for this study are Greg Noe (lead), Paul Angermeier, Larry Barber, Matthew Cashman, Olivia Devereux, Sally Entrekin, Rosemary Fanelli, Than Hitt, Jeramy Jasmann, Kelly Maloney, Kelly Smalling, and Ty Wagner.

The communication and synthesis team for this fact sheet are Greg Noe, John Wolf, and Ken Hyer of the USGS, along with Lili Badri, Vanessa Vargas-Nguyen, and Bill Dennison of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

Acknowledgments

This study would not have been possible without the generous support of private, nonprofit, and public landowners, who granted scientists access so that they could study the streams and riparian areas. We are sincerely grateful for their generosity. Numerous stakeholders charged with implementing conservation practices helped us connect with these landowners and better understand local stream issues and their information needs to better manage their watersheds. Finally, we thank the many scientists who dedicated their expertise to this study. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Chesapeake Bay Activities supports this work and is a partnership between scientists from the USGS and Virginia Tech.