The Chesapeake Bay is the nation’s largest estuary. After slow deterioration for several centuries, the Chesapeake Bay Program was launched in 1983 to restore it. After spending more than $24 billion, the results of the restoration program are disappointing. The Bay Program has arrested the decline of the Bay, but it has failed to achieve its restoration goals—something that will become more challenging with climate change. The rate of environmental change today is more rapid than at any time in the history of humanity. The concept of restoration—to return to an earlier time and condition—is an outmoded concept for coastal ecosystems like the Chesapeake Bay that are at the leading edge of change. A better strategy would be to focus on shaping the future Bay. While we cannot create the future Bay, we have many of the tools to shape it, tools that have never been used as a complement to existing efforts. Learn about the past and present of the Bay, how climate change will affect its future, and how we can intervene to shape the future of the Chesapeake.

The USA touts Chesapeake Bay as its premier environmental restoration programme, yet the Bay remains in poor condition.

Life in the Chesapeake Bay is the most important book ever published on America's largest estuary. Since publication of the first edition in 1984, tens of thousands of naturalists, boaters, fishermen, and conservationists have relied on the book's descriptions of the Bay's plants, animals, and diverse habitats. Superbly illustrated and clearly written, this acclaimed guide describes hundreds of plants and animals and their habitats, from diamondback terrapins to blue crabs to hornshell snails. Now in its third edition, the book has been updated with a new gallery of thirty-nine color photographs and dozens of new species descriptions and illustrations. The new edition retains the charm of an engaging classic while adding a decade of new research. This classic guide to the plants and animals of the Chesapeake Bay will appeal to a variety of readers—year-round residents and summer vacationers, professional biologists and amateur scientists, conservationists and sportsmen.

Known for its beauty and bounty, the Chesapeake Bay stretches nearly 200 miles from the mouth of the Susquehanna River to the ocean capes of the Atlantic, its tidal waters enriching the vibrant coastal communities of both Maryland and Virginia. Chesapeake Bay Explorer’s Guide is the perfect reference for visitors who want to know more about the things they see in their visit to the famous estuary, whether they are relaxing on a beach, paddling through a saltmarsh, or watching workboats duck beneath a drawbridge. Explore more than 14,415 miles of shoreline, myriad hiking trails, and scores of wildlife preserves nestled between resort towns and other attractions. This guide provides a concise history of how the Bay was formed, and brief entries with full-color images and easy-to-read descriptions of the flora, fauna, and man-made artifacts found in and around the Bay.

An appendix documents the many small islands that have dropped entirely from view since the seventeenth century.

In 1991, Island Press published Turning the Tide, a unique and accessible examination of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The book took an indepth look at the Bay’s vital signs to gauge the overall health of its entire ecosystem and to assess what had been done and what remained to be done to clean up the Bay. This new edition of Turning the Tide addresses new developments of the past decade and examines the factors that will have the most significant effects on the health of the Bay in the coming years.With new case studies and updated maps, charts, and graphs, the book builds on the analytical power of ten years of experience to offer a new perspective, along with clear, science-based recommendations for the future. For all those who want to know not only how much must be done to save the Bay but what they can do and how they can make a difference, Turning the Tide is an essential source of information.