Chesapeake Bay Nutrients, Light and SAV: Relationships Between Water Quality and SAV Growth in Fiel

Published:

June 1, 1995

Originator:

ChesapeakeBay Program

EPA Number:

EPA 903-R-95-011

The decline of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the Chesapeake Bay has been associated with light limitation resulting from changes in water quality (Kemp et al/ 1984, Orth and Moore 1983). Eutrophication severely limits the potential for the growth of submerged aquatic macrophytes, not only by promoting planktonic algal blooms (Swingle 1947), but also by promoting excessive epiphytic algal overgrowth (Phillips et al. 1978). Evidence for the negative impacts of eutrophication on submerged macrophytes spans northern and southern hemispheres in marine as well as freshwater environments (Stevenson 1988). For example, nutritent loading of coastal salt ponds in New England has been shown to enhance marine macroalgaeat the expense of seagrass species (Lee and Olsend 1985, Valiela and Costa 1988), and appears to be associated with a significant decline of seagrasses in Cockburn Sound, Australia (Shepherd et al. 1989).