ABSTRACT
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest and, historically, most productive estuary in the United States. The bay is long and narrow, being about 250 kilometers long and 25–50 kilometers wide. The estuary is very shallow, with an average depth of only seven meters, but has a deep trench up to 60 meters deep that is the “drowned” Susquehanna River channel. The very large size of the bay watershed in relation to its relatively small water volume is probably the defining factor in its native productivity and susceptibility to non-point source pollutants. The watershed is approximately 100,000 km2 in size (Figure 14.1), with a watershed area to water volume ratio of about 2,400:1. This is about six times greater than the estuary with the next largest watershed area to water volume ratio, the Bay of Finland. This makes the Chesapeake Bay very sensitive to pollutant sources in its watershed. The Chesapeake Bay watershed. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203814901/9bffdd5f-8409-4e12-b0ca-4e8566f21502/content/fig14_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
