Can Cascading Pools Help Restore the Chesapeake Bay?

Can Cascading Pools Help Restore the Chesapeake Bay?

Can Cascading Pools Help Restore the Chesapeake Bay?

Samuel Owings's farm outside Chestertown, Maryland may be over a dozen miles from the Chesapeake Bay, but he knows there’s a direct link between his 300 tillable acres and the waterway that supports more than 3,600 animal and plant species. What he and other farmers do on their land can grow or shrink the oxygen-depleted seafloor pockets known as dead zones.

The culprits behind the Chesapeake Bay dead zones are millions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus from farm fields, city streets, wastewater treatment plants, and gasoline emissions, and other sources. These nutrients spur the growth of algal blooms, which eventually become food for bacteria that consume oxygen as they eat. And roughly 40 percent of the nitrogen and 50 percent of the phosphorus that flows into the bay each year comes from agricultural lands.

Aware of his role in a chain of events that threaten the health of the bay and communities that rely on it, Owings designed and installed a series of cascading pools that traps stormwater—and the nutrients it carries—on his land.

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Allen P. Davis, along with alumna Rosie Myers (M.S. '15), examined the impact of these pools on agricultural runoff for two years with support from the Maryland Industrial Partnerships program, part of the A. James Clark School of Engineering. The promising results will appear in the November print edition of the Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering.

Owings, Davis, and Myers hope cascading pools will join the suite of best management practices farmers employ to combat nutrient runoff. These efforts, along with steps taken by communities and wastewater treatment plants, have already yielded measurable improvements to the health of the Chesapeake Bay—in fact, the Univesity of Maryland Center for Environmental Science 2017 Chesapeake Bay Report Card recorded improvements to the overall health of the bay for the first time.

Watch the video above to learn more. And for more information on how to install cascading pools on your land, visit www.highimpactenvironmental.org.

Are you are a member of the media interested in interviewing Dr. Davis? Please email: clark-communications@umd.edu.

Related Articles:
Prince George’s County Stormwater Collaboration Taps Recycled Material to Safeguard Chesapeake Bay
NSF Graduate Research Fellow to Study Fate of Microplastics in Rivers
UMD Awarded $1.4 Million to Design New Treatment for PCBs, Heavy Metals in Stormwater
Yao, Yang Receive Education Award from the American Chemical Society Division of Agrochemicals
Giving back: New solar panels support a local urban farm
Report Recommends Improvements to Industrial Stormwater Program
CEE Students Win Top Awards at Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Annual Meeting
Featured Faculty: Birthe Kjellerup
Xue Awarded NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship
Forman Awarded NASA New Investigator Award for Global Snow Research

October 11, 2018


Prev   Next

Current Headlines

"Rare but Devastating": Maisel Honored for Immunotherapy Research to Treat Deadly Lung Disease in Women

Gemstone Team Wins 2023 ‘Do Good’ Showcase Prize to Build Wildfire Drone

Reflecting on 20 Years of Excellence and Innovation

Looking Back on the Fall 2023 Semester, Looking Forward to Sharing a New Strategic Plan in 2024

Revolutionizing Water Access: Aquair Wins 2023 R&D 100 Award

Barg honored with 2024 IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal

UMD Hosts Industrial AI Forum

UMD Start-Up Ionic Devices Wins Microbattery Design Prize

News Resources

Return to Newsroom

Search News

Archived News

Events Resources

Events Calendar