Estuarine Hypoxia

Team Lead: Dr. Marjorie Friedrichs

• Chesapeake Bay Hydrodynamic Modeling: A Proactive STAC Workshop  (presented June 9-10, 2011)
• Modeling Hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay:Lessons Learned from a Model Intercomparison Analysis - M. Friedrichs (VIMS Biological Sciences Seminar Nov 14, 2011)
• Is there any air down there? Using multiple 3D numerical models to investigate hypoxic volumes within the Chesapeake Bay, USA (CERF Poster, 11/11)

HYPOXIA in Chesapeake Bay
Hypoxia is a condition threatening the health of the Chesapeake Bay in which oxygen levels drop so low that fish and other animals are stressed or killed, and the incidents of hypoxia-causing «dead zones» are on the rise. 

Hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay occurs usually in the summer and is primarily the result of human activities that deliver nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus into the Bay, but new evidence from the testbed scientists suggest that wind forcing plays a significant role.  The added nutrients support blooms of algae which in turn are decomposed by oxygen-depleting bacteria. The resulting hypoxia can suffocate animals that cannot move away, such as shellfish, and -- depending on how quickly the hypoxia develops -- either kill or force into less suitable habitat free-swimming animals such as fish, shrimp, and crabs.

The testbed will provide the modeling information that will enable best management practices and mitigation measures to be targeted in the Chesapeake Bay and on the human activities that have the most significant effect on decreasing nutrient transfer from land to coastal ecosystems.