Monitoring
USGS Tidal and Nontidal Monitoring Stations
The USGS website provides information on the water quality loads and trends at the nontidal monitoring stations in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Methods, data, results, and interpretations are available for nutrient and sediment loads and yields (per-acre loads), and trends in nutrient and sediment loads.
This USGS Data Release summarizes the loads and trends measured at the Chesapeake Bay River Input Monitoring stations for the water years 1985-2020. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and suspended-sediment loads, and changes in loads, in major rivers across the Chesapeake Bay watershed have been calculated using monitoring data from the Chesapeake Bay River Input Monitoring (RIM) Network stations.
The Chesapeake Bay Nontidal Monitoring Loads and Trends page shares the short-term water year nutrient and suspended-sediment load and trend results and background information for the Chesapeake Bay Program's nontidal network (NTN). It provides primary findings for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment trends and examines results for river basins and individual sites.
Chesapeake Bay Watershed Data
The Chesapeake Bay has an Open Data Portal with spatial information about monitoring and much, much more. Find some datasets for direct download at the bottom of this page.
The Watershed Data Dashboard is a visualization tool to consolidate and provide accessibility to Chesapeake Bay watershed monitoring, modeling, trends, projections and explanations for use in watershed management planning and implementation. Much of these data came from CAST and are presented in a way that helps people understand the need for watershed improvement.
The Chesapeake Progress website has a page on Water Quality Standards Attainment and Monitoring, which provides text and visuals to share the results of nutrient and sediment monitoring progress toward the Bay TMDL. Here you will find interactive graphs and maps representing the watershed data over the years, as well as downloadable excel files and PDFs. The Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Standards Attainment Indicator is an application that is designed for visualizing the segment-level results for the Chesapeake Bay water quality standards attainment indicator between the 1985-1987 assessment period and the latest assessment period.
The Monitored and Expected Total Reduction Indicator for the Chesapeake (METRIC) is an application designed for visualizing the monitored load trend and CAST-estimated load trend for the Chesapeake Bay Non-Tidal Network (NTN) stations.
Non-Tidal Water Quality Dashboard
Comparisons between the modeled and monitored data can be found on the non-tidal water quality dashboard. These visual representations show both the loads estimated from the U.S. Geologic Survey's Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge and Season (WRTDS) and loads estimated from the time-variable Phase 6 Watershed Model. Non-Tidal Water Quality Dashboard