Oyster aquaculture returned to the Delaware Inland Bays with the issuing of shellfish leasing areas in 2018, bolstering local economies, improving water quality, and providing structured habitat for fish and invertebrates. Additionally, the Delaware Center for Inland Bays established three pilot artificial oyster reefs beginning in 2019 to restore native oyster populations and further improve the Inland Bay environment. Successful management of oyster farming and restoration efforts depends on continuous monitoring of growing conditions. Our goal was to monitor and identify relationships between physical water quality parameters, and chlorophyll-a in Rehoboth Bay, DE.
A pilot water quality monitoring program was established in Rehoboth Bay, Delaware, which included multiparameter continuous water quality instruments (sondes) deployed at sites of oyster aquaculture and artificial oyster reefs from summer through late fall in the 2020 and 2021 field seasons. Trends in water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, turbidity, total suspended solids, calcium hardness, and chlorophyll-a were examined with respect to oyster growing conditions. Overall, not much variability present throughout the seven bay sites, though there were some differences present between 2020 and 2021. Generalized additive models revealed chlorophyll-a had significant relationships with both dissolved oxygen and temperature. These preliminary findings are expected to inform the management of Delaware oyster aquaculture and restoration efforts and shape the direction of future monitoring efforts.