Chesapeake Bay Case Study

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Chesapeake Bay is known to be an extremely complex living system, and has been greatly disturbed over the past years. But there's been a problem around this watershed the past couple of years. The health of the Bay has been on a downward roll, and something is needed to be done in order to halt it. There have been multiple different attempts to try and reverse the damage that has been done. But, what has made the Bay get to this point; why is it important to restore; and what can be done to fix the health of Chesapeake Bay? First of all, Chesapeake Bay has been greatly affected by human activity. For instance, as stated in Source 1, " Residential developments replace wetlands, forests and meadows". So humans living space, is taking over the places in which many organisms live; such as the wetlands and forests. Another example of human activity that has affected the ecosystem at Chesapeake Bay is explained again in Source 1 saying, "Intensive hunting practices led to the serious decline or extinction of …show more content…

A first reason that the Bay should be restored, is because as explained in Source 2 , "The resulting low dissolved oxygen concentrations drive blue crabs from their preferred habitat and kill many of the small bottom organisms on which the blue crabs feed." Because human's outlet a lot of nutrients, it causes an excess growth of algea, which ends up inhibiting the blue crab and other organisms, and can possibly lead to extiction. It is important to save the many species that live in the area. Another reason in it pf great importance to save Chesapeake Bay, is because there are plants which serve as food to many other organisms, that are going extinct. For instance, "the atamasco lily"(Source 1). It has been in a great decline, and it supports many other life sources, if nothing is done to try and save it, then there will be even more animals or other life that will be hurt. It is important to save

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