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Derivation of Habitat-Specific Dissolved Oxygen Criteria for Chesapeake Bay and its Tidal Tributaries
Citation:
BATIUK, R., D. L. Breitberg, R. J. Diaz, T. M. Cronin, AND G. B. THURSBY. Derivation of Habitat-Specific Dissolved Oxygen Criteria for Chesapeake Bay and its Tidal Tributaries. JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 381(Supplement 1):S204-S215, (2009).
Impact/Purpose:
There has been considerable scientific and management concern about the apparent increase in the severity and prevalence of low dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations (hypoxia) in estuaries and coastal marine waters worldwide. The Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries harbor diverse and productive communities of aquatic organisms that are supported by a complex and spatially varying food web. In recognition of variation among Bay habitats in their use by ecologically and economically important species, as well as variation among habitats in their tendency towards development of low DO, the Chesapeake Bay Program partners (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the watershed states) and an advisory panel comprised of researchers and other stakeholders developed DO criteria that explicitly considered temporal and spatial aspects of both species' needs and drivers of hypoxia. This paper describes the process and results of synthesizing and applying a science-based approach to the derivation of DO criteria for managing water quality with the goal of protecting living resources and the food web upon which they depend.
Description:
The Chesapeake 2000 Agreement committed its state and federal signatories to “define the water quality conditions necessary to protect aquatic living resources” in the Chesapeake Bay (USA) and its tidal tributaries. Hypoxia is one of the key water quality issues addressed as a result of the above Agreement. This paper summarizes the protection goals and specific criteria intended to achieve those goals for addressing hypoxia. The criteria take into account the variety of Bay habitats and the tendency towards low dissolved oxygen in some areas of the Bay. Stressful dissolved oxygen conditions were characterized for a diverse array of living resources of the Chesapeake Bay by different aquatic habitats: migratory fish spawning and nursery, shallow-water, open-water, deep-water, and deep-channel. The dissolved oxygen criteria derived for each of these habitats are intended to protect against adverse effects on survival, growth, reproduction and behavior. The criteria accommodate both spatial and temporal aspects of low oxygen events, and have been adopted into the Chesapeake Bay states – Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware – and the District of Columbia's water quality standards regulations. These criteria, now in the form of state regulatory standards, are driving an array of land-based and wastewater pollution reduction actions across the six-watershed.