Loading...
Assessment of Hypoxia and its Relationship with Nutrient Loads and Wind, and Implication to the Chesapeake Bay Management
Wang, Ping Wang, Harry V. Linker, Lewis
Wang, Ping
Wang, Harry V.
Linker, Lewis
Abstract
Statistics are applied to analyze the correlations of summer hypoxia in the Chesapeake Bay with watershed input and wind conditions based on nearly three decades of monitoring data. The Pearson correlation coefficients indicate that the averaged summer hypoxia has strong positive correlation with watershed nutrient load and discharge, and moderate negative correlation with summer average wind speed. Nutrient inputs and the subsequent decay of organic matter are the primary factor that controls the oxygen demand causing summer hypoxia, while episodic wind can partly erode stratification and hypoxia. The interannual variation of hypoxia is mainly controlled by watershed input, but wind plays an important role in modulating hypoxia, such as variations of hypoxic volumes in individual summer months. Although the extent of hypoxia reduction is different with different wind directions, a faster wind speed (above certain strength) causes stronger destratification and hypoxia reduction than weaker speeds, which is generally more important than the effect due to wind directions. Computer modelling is used to obtain dissolved oxygen conditions in finer temporal and spatial scales to supplement the discrete observations in scattered monitoring stations to better understand hypoxia development under episodic wind events, which enhances the understanding on physical relationships among the concerned constituents beyond the statistical analysis.
Description
Date
2013-01-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Collections
Download Dataset
Files
Rights Holder
Usage License
Embargo
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Physical Sciences Reports
Research and Technical Reports, Hypoxia, nutrient load, freshwater discharge, wind speed and directions, destratification, correlation analysis
Citation
Advisor
Department
Virginia Institute of Marine Science