What part of the Chesapeake Bay is freshwater?

What part of the Chesapeake Bay is freshwater?

The head of the Bay and its tidal rivers are fresh, with a salinity of less than 0.5 ppt. The middle portion of the Bay and its tidal rivers are brackish: a mixture of salt and fresh water.

What major rivers feed freshwater into the Chesapeake Bay?

The Susquehanna, Potomac, Rappahannock, York and James rivers are the five largest rivers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. More than 100,000 streams, creeks and rivers—called tributaries—thread through this watershed.

Does the Chesapeake Bay have freshwater?

Brackish water, a combination of saltwater and freshwater, fills most of the Bay. The mingling of the freshwater with ocean water creates an estuary. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America, and one of the largest in the world.

What are the 4 Virginia rivers that flow into the Chesapeake Bay watershed?

Virginia has 4 major river systems that flow into the Chesapeake Bay and then toward the Atlantic Ocean. They are, from north to south: the Potomac-Shenandoah River system, the Rappahannock River, the York River, and the James River.

Which watersheds flow into the Chesapeake Bay?

The majority of freshwater flow enters the Bay from three major watersheds: Susquehanna, Potomac, and James (Figure 2).

Is the Potomac River freshwater?

Because the Potomac does not connect with the sea (Atlantic Ocean) but with Chesapeake Bay, fresh Potomac River water mixes with brackish Chesapeake Bay water in the Potomac Estuary. The reach of the Potomac River that contains only fresh water but is still influenced by tides is termed the tidal Potomac River.

Which watersheds are apart of the Chesapeake Bay watershed?

The Chesapeake Bay watershed, or draingage basin, encompasses six states – New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. A drainage basin is a giant system of creeks, streams, and rivers that all flow into a common outlet, which in this case is the Chesapeake Bay.

Which river watershed that is a part of the Bay watershed do we live in?

The Chesapeake Bay watershed (drainage basin) extends about five hundred miles south from the headwaters of Otsego Lake, near Cooperstown, New York to the Atlantic Ocean and Suffolk, Virginia. It extends east from mountain streams near Blacksburg, Virginia to Berlin, Maryland (near Ocean City).

Is a bay saltwater or freshwater?

Bays on lakes and rivers have freshwater ecosystems. Most bays have brackish water. Brackish water has a greater salt content than freshwater, but not nearly as much as the ocean.

What watersheds flow into the Chesapeake Bay?

Which River watershed that is a part of the Bay watershed do we live in?

Where does Chesapeake watershed flow to?

Where does the water in the Chesapeake Bay come from?

The Bay receives about half its water volume from the Atlantic Ocean in the form of saltwater. The other half (freshwater) drains into the Bay from the enormous 64,000-square-mile watershed. The Susquehanna River is the Bay’s largest tributary, and contributes about half of the Bay’s freshwater (about 19 million gallons per minute).

Where does the Chesapeake Bay watershed start and end?

A watershed is an area of land that drains into a particular river, lake, bay or other body of water. The Chesapeake Bay watershed stretches approximately 524 miles from Cooperstown, New York, to Norfolk, Virginia.

Which is the largest tributary of the Chesapeake Bay?

The Susquehanna River is the Bay’s largest tributary, and contributes about half of the Bay’s freshwater (about 19 million gallons per minute). Collectively, the Chesapeake’s three largest rivers—the Susquehanna, Potomac and James Rivers—provide more than 80 percent of the fresh water to the Bay.

How long does it take for Susquehanna River to flow into Chesapeake Bay?

It takes six days for water to flow from the farthest corner of the watershed—the head or source waters of the Susquehanna River in New York—to Havre de Grace, Maryland, where it empties into the Chesapeake. Each year, the Susquehanna River transports more than a million tons of sediment to the Bay. See a map of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.