Chesapeake Bay Environmental Analysis

In the fraction of comic time humans have existed, humanity has burned a trail of destructive impact on Earth. Humans have reached a point where environment manipulation is become more of a want than a need, and due to this fact other species on earth suffer. In the past one-hundred years, humanity has caused the extinction of hundreds of other species on earth, and humanity might just add its own name to the list as environments are violently manipulated. These changes to the environment is seen in Chesapeake Bay, where human activity has place the bay and the species living there is grave danger, and there must be an effort to halt further harm.

Human activity, such as development and pollution, affect the Bay’s health. First development

changes the environments around the Chesapeake Bay. Housing development replace wetlands, forests, and meadows, and land left is further changed to satisfy the extra wants of the population immigrating. From diverting water for drinking to building roads human contact changes the Bay natural balance. Pollution is another major factor which affects the Chesapeake Bay’s health. Point-source pollution has a monumental effect on the health of Chesapeake Bay as industries use water from the Bay to cool machinery and dump excess nutrients into the water. The heated water goes back into the Bay and the extra nutrients causes the Bay to become the perfect conditions for a dangerous increase of growth of algae. Source three explains, “When there is too much algae, the water becomes cloudy and blocks the light needed by underwater plants... When large amounts of algae are decomposed by bacteria, the removal of dissolved oxygen is substantially increased....This dissolved oxygen is needed by blue crabs and other organisms living on and near the bottom”. To sum up, the increase in nutrients causes an increase in algae which cause the killing of underwater plants, and when the algae die the bacteria use up dissolved oxygen in the water which is needed by all the organisms living in the Bay. It is obvious that human activity affects the health of the Chesapeake Bay.
Due to the affect human activity has on other organisms, it is important to restore the Chesapeake Bay’s health.

Stories are told about species that can adapt to the world around them at a surprising rate, but not all species can adapt that quickly to sudden changes in the environment. This is important to keep in mind when dealing with dense habitats, in fact several species of animals have gone extinct in the Chesapeake Bay area. If the Bay’s health goes unrestored, then diversity of species will dramatically decrease. In source four, the chart shows the number of Blue Crabs in the Chesapeake Bay through the years 1990-2013, and the data is astonishing. It is seen that as time moves on the number of crabs are in substantial fluctuation as from 1991 to 1993 the number of crabs went from around eight hundred in 1991, down to three hundred the following year, and up to around eight hundred and fifty in 1993. This data shows that the Bay's health was in sudden extremes of health. However the concerning data is from the years 1999 to 2010, when the number of Blue Crabs in the Chesapeake Bay is below the average. For a decade the health of the Bay was obviously substandard. The importance of having the Chesapeake Bay in good health is the survival of all species, not just the survival of

humanity.
There was steps that could be taken to restore the health of the Chesapeake Bay. One step is restricting point source pollution. Point source pollution is identifiable points the pollutants are discharged like a pipe, ditch, ship or factory smokestack. By restricting the amount of pollution allowed to be dumped at these point the health of the Bay would be improved as it would restrict the level of nitrate and phosphorus. In source 3, the pollution percentages from different sources are shown. It can be see that for nitrogen levels, point source pollution makes up 31% of all sources. That is a large percentage and for the levels of pollution point source creates, the Bay’s health is severely damaged by that number. For phosphorus levels, the percentage goes down to 24%. Although the number is smaller the impact of the phosphorus is still a major threat to the Chesapeake Bay. Thus, restricting point source pollution will help restore the health of the Bay.