Abstract
Chincoteague Bay is a bar-built estuary with two inlets from the Atlantic Ocean—one at Ocean City, Maryland, and the other some 30 miles southward at Chincoteague Inlet. All available salinity data collected in the years 1951 through 1956 are utilized here to evaluate the processes which control the average monthly salinity in the bay. The major features of the salt balance are satisfactorily explained by a simple model equating the rate of change of salinity to terms involving net fresh water inflow and exchange rate through the inlets. An estimation of the exchange rate is made which indicates that approximately seven percent of the volume of the bay waters are renewed each day.
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Contribution No. 45 from the Chesapeake Bay Institute. This work was supported by the State of Maryland (Department of Research and Education) and the Commonwealth of Virginia (Virginia Fisheries Laboratory).
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Pritchard, D.W. Salt balance and exchange rate for Chincoteague Bay. Chesapeake Science 1, 48–57 (1960). https://doi.org/10.2307/1350536
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1350536