Saltwater marsh wetlands and islands are seen at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County, Maryland. Sea-level rise, land subsidence, and erosion have eaten away at the land. Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program.
Susceptible to sea level rise and storms, the Chesapeake’s remaining islands represent just a fraction of the many from centuries ago
Four hundred. That is the number of islands that have vanished from within the Chesapeake Bay over the last four centuries according to studies by Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources—two guardians of the bay. Rising sea level and storms have gobbled up land, swallowing small masses and reducing larger ones to a fraction of their original self. And some islands with once lively neighborhoods are now people-free.
Two-thirds of the Chesapeake Bay’s island mass, as recorded in 1750, are now gone. The total amount of shoreline along and within the bay retreats about six inches per year as sea level rises about 1.5 feet every hundred years. The bay holds 18 trillion gallons of water, half of which comes from the Atlantic Ocean and another half from the streams and rivers of its 64,000-square-mile watershed. Fifty-one billion gallons of water are contributed daily from the 100,000 streams, creeks, and rivers that feed into the bay. Islands in the bay and its tributaries are greatly affected by the inflow of more and more water.
Saltwater marsh wetlands and islands are seen at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County, Maryland. Sea-level rise, land subsidence, and erosion have eaten away at the land. Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program.
Saltwater marsh wetlands and islands are seen at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County, Maryland. Sea-level rise, land subsidence, and erosion have eaten away at the land. Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program.
Shark Tooth Island in the Potomac River, named for the accumulation of Miocene Epoch shark teeth, is only inches above sea level. The teeth and whale fossils help document historic sea levels and shoreline changes. The island’s future appears doomed, as sea level rise and land erosion amount to 1.5 inches of loss every 10 years.
Bloodsworth Island, which once hosted a Phillips crabbing venture, saw its last residents leave in 1918. It was then purchased by the U.S. Navy in 1942 and used as a bombing range. Today, it is off limits to the public. Like so many other islands, it’s losing the battle against rising bay waters.
In 1900, hunters built a lodge on Fox Island, which lies just south of the Maryland border. Caught by game wardens in 1974 for baiting waterfowl, the judge offered them a choice between jail or donating the island to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The owners chose to donate the land. And Fox Island became an education center hosting students for three-day study excursions. By 2019, the 423-acre island mapped in 1773 had been eroded away and reduced to just 34 acres. The hunting lodge/education center was deemed no longer safe for overnight programs. On February 9th, 2024, the center burned to the ground.
Brown Pelicans at the disappearing Holland Island in the Chesapeake Bay.
Holland Island in Dorchester County was once home to farmers and watermen. Sadly, it saw its last standing home crumble into the water in 2010. But other communities of watermen, some of which date back to colonial times, are determined to make life work on their islands.
Tangier Island is in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay and slowly losing land mass because of climate change. It is home to a small permanent community of watermen who fish, crab, and oyster. Colorful crab shanties with stacked crab pots line the marshes around this popular tourist destination.
Tangier and Smith Islands still support villages of hard-working residents. Federal dollars have provided resources for breakwaters and living shoreline projects that protect the islands from severe erosion. Tangier was first inhabited in 1686. It has a storied past of watermen with a unique dialect/accent of old English passed down over centuries. Today, it caters to tourists who seek vacation and respite from the extremely busy cities of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Nearby Smith Island is similar, and the home of the Maryland State Cake—Smith Island Cake.
Left: Historical placard on Smith Island, Maryland in the Chesapeake Bay. Bottom: Abandoned homes, like this one on Hooper’s Island, are a common sight at many of the once-prosperous Chesapeake islands that have succumbed to land erosion and sea level rise.
At one time, many hotels dotted the shoreline of the nation’s largest estuary. More than two dozen resorts, from Kent Narrows on Kent Island (Maryland’s first European settlement) through Talbot County and to Norfolk, provided comfortable places to vacation and soak up the enduring history and seafood bounty of the bay—crabs, oysters, and rock fish. Oxford, Maryland, was an important port town during the Revolutionary War and, today, boasts a restaurant and inn dating back 400 years. Luxurious lodgings along the bay give a glimpse of Maryland’s colonial history where fortunes were made.
Top: The last house on Holland Island in the Chesapeake Bay as it stood in October 2009. This house fell into the bay in October 2010. Photograph by Flickr user Bald Eagle Bluff. Bottom: Beach erosion along Chesapeake Bay shorelines and islands has become increasingly common, especially the result of significant storms.
The Chesapeake Bay, explored by Captain John Smith in the 1600s, was designated by Congress in 2006 as a National Historic water trail of 3,000 miles. Captain Smith was the first English explorer to map the bay. His leadership is also credited with saving the Virginia settlement at Jamestown by training settlers to fish and farm. But it was his maps that became vitally important to the colonization of the New World. They also became significant resources for observing the changes that have occurred within the Bay over the last 400 years—a period when 400 islands have disappeared.
