Regional and Urban Design Committee

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The US Largest Estuary - A Complex Eco System Explained

  • 1.  The US Largest Estuary - A Complex Eco System Explained

    Posted 05-23-2024 03:03 PM

    The Chesapeake Bay - A Complex Eco-System Explained 

    From the Ice Age to sprawl

    First there was a huge meteor impact, then at the end of the ice age a giant glacier melting. Beavers damming streams and creating wetlands, a bounty of huge oysters, 100' schooners transporting the lumber that came from swampy woodlands being converted into tobacco farms, finally massive sprawly shoreline development and a huge load of sediment reshaping the waterway in many ways. 

    LandSat image of the Chesapeake Bay (full length)

    Few will consider any of this when they catch a glimpse of the Chesapeake while their plane is banking towards the BWI airport or when they traverse the Bay Bridge at the lofty height of 190' on their way to the Atlantic beaches. 

    Unfortunately the alternating doomsday and success messages about the state of the Bay have numbed many in the watershed to such an extent that they just tune out when it comes to the health of the Bay. Yet, the collapsed history of the Bay....

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    [Klaus] Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
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