A report card on the health of the Chesapeake Bay released today looks beyond the traditional indicators of nitrogen, phosphorus and water, and reviews what’s going on with the people in the bay’s massive watershed.
On ecological indicators the new report card by UMCES, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, finds the bay is making progress, though the watersheds of some of the rivers that feed the Bay are not as healthy.
Our 2022 Chesapeake Bay and Watershed Report Card is out!@IAN_UMCES found that the overall health of the #ChesapeakeBay is showing significant improvements in trends over time but some regions are still scoring poorly.
— UMCES (@UMCES) June 6, 2023
Learn more: https://t.co/UCjuFnyHzz pic.twitter.com/7HbBOBrDtn
Later in the show, Maryland Secretary of Natural Resources Josh Kurtz joins us to discuss the invasive and indigenous creatures in the bay. After years of falling numbers, are crab populations moving in the right direction? And what threat do invasive species, like the Blue Catfish, pose?
Bill Dennison, UMCES vice president for Science Application, joins us first to discuss some of the new findings. Dennison is a professor of marine science and is set to become UMCES interim president in September.
UMCES report includes a new component this year—environmental justice—where it finds marked disparities. Suburbs tend to show lower impacts of environmental stress than cities and rural areas.
