The land surface
of the Chesapeake Bay watershed-all 64,000 square miles of
it-exceeds
the area of the Bay itself 15 times. Like the roots of a great
tree, 100,000 rivers and streams reach up into the watershed,
directly connecting farms, forests, and communities with the
Bay. Consequently, what takes place on the land has a profound
effect on the Bay. Nutrients, sediments, and toxics from urban
and agricultural runoff, loss of forests, wetlands and stream
buffers all degrade local streams and the Chesapeake Bay. Spreading
urbanization in the Bay's watersheds threatens to undo much
of the progress to date in restoring stream buffers, managing
farms, and protecting resource lands.
The future of the Bay will be determined by how we shape
the change now occurring throughout the watershed. In 25 years,
if growth in the watershed continues at the same rate experienced
during the late1990s, more than 4,500 square miles of additional
resource lands (forests, wetlands, farms) will be converted
to urbanized uses-an area 70 times the size of the District
of Columbia. Trends, however, are not destiny. We have a choice
about how growth takes form in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
and the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region.
This Atlas provides an overview of one important metropolitan
region in the Bay watershed, that of the metropolitan Washington,
D.C., region and the surrounding outlying rural jurisdictions.
The manner in which natural resources and built features fit
together and can be supportive (or destructive) of one another
is explored through this snapshot of the land. How we use
land-land in cities, older suburbs, rapidly growing new suburbs,
farm fields, and forests-will determine the long-term health
of the Chesapeake Bay, the natural environment, and our communities
and economies.
Conserving
the Washington-Baltimore Region's Green Network: The Time
To Act Is Now | Washington
Region in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
| Imperviousness |
Natural Resource & Agricultural
Lands
Protected Lands | Protected
Greenspace Inside the Capital Beltway
Urbanization
Future Growth
Model
Acknowledgments: This Atlas
was made possible through the generosity of the Prince Charitable
Trusts, the Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation, and the members
of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Primary contributors: Steve Libbey,
Cheryl Cort, Jennifer Schlager, and Lee Epstein, Lands Program,
Chesapeake Bay Foundation;
Howard Weinberg, Geographic Information Systems,
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science;
Chesapeake Bay Program;
Drew Smith, Department of Geography, University of Maryland
at College Park;
Wink Hastings, National Park Service
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