Chesapeake Bay sees smaller-than-average 'dead zone' in 2022
Satellite (Landsat) picture of Chesapeake Bay (center) and Delaware Bay (upper right) – and Atlantic coast of the central-eastern United States. Im...
Satellite (Landsat) picture of Chesapeake Bay (center) and Delaware Bay (upper right) – and Atlantic coast of the central-eastern United States. Image credit: Landsat/NASA, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons. More information: Don Scavia's hypoxia forecast page This year's Chesapeake Bay 'dead zone' was the 10th-smallest observed since 1985, according to findings released today by the Chesapeake Bay Program and its partners, including the University of Michigan. The annual Chesapeake Bay dead zone is an area of low oxygen that forms in deep waters when excess nutrients, including both nitrogen and phosphorus, enter the water through polluted runoff and feed naturally occurring algae.