Big Data of the Potomac Estuary

The studies summarized below were efforts to integrate and interpret multiple long-term datasets and related information into holistic perspectives of the Potomac estuary.

Environmental Atlas of the Potomac Estuary (1979)

Lippson, A. J., M. S. Haire, A. F. Holland, F. Jacobs, J. Jensen, R. L. Moran-Johnson, T. T. Polgar, and W. A. Richkus. Prepared by Martin Marietta Corporation for Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Available through online bookstores. 

This Atlas was conceived and sponsored by the Maryland Power Plant Siting Program as a management aid for evaluating the regional implications of environmental changes caused by the operation of existing power plants and for evaluating the suitability of sites for future facilities along the estuary. This compendium of information can also be productively used in regional planning for industrial, agricultural, and urban development activities.

Tidal Potomac Integrative Analysis Project: A Series of Reports on the Water Quality and Living Resources Responses to Management Actions to Reduce Nutrients in the Potomac River Estuary (1999)

C. Buchanan (ed.) Prepared by ICPRB for the Chesapeake Bay Program. (ICPRB Report 99-4)

This compilation of several reports explores progress since the 1960s to reduce pollutant loads in the Potomac River estuary and restore water quality and aquatic life to desirable levels. Completed in 1999 and written by scientists and managers studying the Potomac River Estuary, the report stated significant strides had been made to control pollutant loads and improve water quality. At the time, however, the Potomac had not recovered balanced, productive populations of aquatic life. The report concluded a more holistic, integrated restoration approach was needed.

The Potomac River Basin and its Estuary: Landscape Loadings and Water Quality Trends, 1895 – 2005 (2007)

N. A. Jaworski, W. Romano, C. Buchanan, and C. L. Jaworski.

Also known as the “Treatise,” the report provides a broad, 110-year perspective of the water quality of the Potomac River Basin and its estuary through a historical analysis of landscape loadings and resulting water quality trends from 1895 to 2005.

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