Climate change and variability are having an impact on the water quality, habitats, and human assets within the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. The USGS Chesapeake Bay studies are addressing aspects of the impacts of climate change and coastal hazards on the Bay ecosystem through four primary objectives:

• Forecasting the impacts and associated hazards from sea-level rise that might occur on the Chesapeake Bay coastline.
• Analyzing changes in streamflow, water temperature, and nutrient and sediment loads from the landscape to the Chesapeake Bay estuary under different climate- and land-use change scenarios.
• Understanding the relations among altered hydrologic regimes, stress on aquatic organisms, and incidence of fish diseases that might occur in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
• Summarizing the current state of knowledge about climate change in the Bay watershed to provide implications for managing DOI lands and resources.