by Dr. Roman Jesien (Jesien is the science coordinator for the Maryland Coastal Bays Program.)

A physical examination from your doctor consists of a standard suite of measurements that can tell a good bit about your health. Height, weight, blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and cholesterol are standard measures that can indicate your state of health or point out areas that might need more attention. In a similar vein, scientists have devoted much time to developing a host of measurements that can efficiently and effectively assess the health of watersheds. The goal of these measurements are to see how the watershed is “feeling,” if remedial actions are working, or if specific areas need more attention than others.

Recently, the Science and Technical Advisory Committee of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program developed a group of indicators that will be used to monitor the health of the coastal bays watershed. The indicators deal with water quality, aquatic habitat, and land use and make use of monitoring programs currently underway with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

The water quality indicators are monitored monthly at a number of locations throughout the coastal bays. These indicators consist of dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll content of water in streams and bays, and nitrate levels in streams. Waters that fall below 5 mg/l dissolved oxygen will be identified for closer scrutiny. Nontidal streams with more than 50 mg/l chloorophyll will be candidates to be singled out for a “diet” for nutrient reduction. Streams with more than 0.3 mg/l nitrate during low flow conditions will, likewise, be singled out for closer scrutiny.

Aquatic habitat indicators are based on results of ongoing monitoring programs and include the acres of submerged aquatic vegetation, abundance of forage fish such as spot, croaker, anchovy and menhaden, and the prevalence of invasive species such as green crabs.

Land use indicators are based on interpretation of satellite imagery and consist of the amount of forested area in the watershed, prevalence of interior forest, amount of wetlands, stream miles with natural buffers, and the ratio of interior forest to edge.

These indicators will be used to formulate a report card for the bays so that their environmental health can be evaluated and monitored over the years as the coastal bays management plan is implemented. Water quality indices are obtained monthly at a number of locations in the coastal bays. To better understand the natural variation in the water quality, automatic monitors are used that continually obtain measurements throughout the growing season. Constant measurements can catch changes due to sudden rain storms or nighttime variations which can lead to fish kills. Automatic monitors have been installed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources at Turville Creek and Bishopville Prong to take a more detailed look at water quality. The Department has made the information available on the web at www.eyesonthebay.net. The monitors send information on water temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH and chlorophyll every 15 minutes, so you can see current conditions. Click on the creek of interest and you can see daily variability or look at weekly or monthly trends. More detailed information on the environmental indicators will soon be posted on this website. You can get more information on the indicators, the automatic monitors or the website from Roman Jesien at science@mdcoastalbays.org.

-- Dr. Roman Jesien