Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID MD_2023_Brubaker

Water Budgets and Water Quality Trends of Interstate Watersheds on the Delmarva Peninsula

Institute: Maryland
Year Established: 2023 Start Date: 2023-09-01 End Date: 2024-08-31
Total Federal Funds: $84,840 Total Non-Federal Funds: $53,786

Principal Investigators: Kaye L Brubaker

Project Summary: A water budget is a technique to describe and understand how and when water enters and leaves a watershed, through precipitation, river or stream flow, evaporation, or groundwater flow. Examining past water budgets for a watershed can give insight into patterns of droughts or wet spells. Knowing how the water moves is also important for predicting how pollutants move. This project will produce water budgets for the selected rivers on the Delmarva Peninsula that cross the Maryland-Delaware state line and flow into the Chesapeake Bay. We hope that our work will help the states, counties, and local residents to understand these shared watersheds and take action to improve their resilience to droughts and floods and water quality in the Bay.