Recent research has indicated that submarine groundwater discharge (SGWD) occurs in the Chesapeake Bay, and that discharged groundwater can be contaminated with nutrients and toxic substances. Although discharge has been measured directly on a local level, a convenient method for determining the spatial distribution of SGWD on a large scale has not yet been devised. Although current watershed mass balance approaches have been used to estimate gross SGWD, this method cannot identify areas at high risk for contaminant input. A family of innovative computer mapping programs called Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have emerged from the software industry that serve not only as mapping tools but also as databases designed to manage spatial data) The GIS approach allows straightforward manipulation and presentation of data that is spatially related. In the research presented here, a GIS was applied to the problem of large-scale determination of SGWD and nutrient loads for the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Computerized data layers including land use, hydraulic gradient and soil permeability were used to create a GIS model of SGWD on Virginia's Eastern Shore. The model was used to predict spatial distribution of SGWD as well as the nutrient loading from nearshore agriculture and on-site waste treatment technologies. While sufficient field data for reliable calibration and verification of the model did not exist, the available data and the output of the GIS model were consistent. The methodology developed predicts that 90% of the impact from nearshore land use occurs in the southwestern quadrant of the Eastern Shore. In addition, the model determined locations where urban land use (septic tanks) may present a nutrient and coliform contamination danger. The model identified areas susceptible to contamination through discharge to a resolution of about 33 meters, showing that GIS can function as a local as well as regional management tool. The GIS framework is also expandable. The model can be modified to accommodate new data as research continues into the phenomenon of submarine groundwater discharge. This synthesis represents the first large-scale groundwater discharge analysis of the Eastern Shore and exists as part of an ongoing investigation to characterize groundwater-surface water interactions of the Eastern Shore. / Master of Science

The purpose of the research was to determine if pesticides were being transported from the place of application by the shallow groundwater and discharged into the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean, and quantify the pesticides if they were transported. One reference (undeveloped) and four agricultural sites were tested over a 11 month period from April 1992 to February 1993. Over 500 groundwater samples were analyzed from both shallow wells and seepage meters placed in the Chesapeake Bay and Magothy Bay. The samples were analyzed in accordance to EPA Method 525.1 by solid phase extraction with octadecyl bonded disks followed by gas chromatography. The samples were examined for 5 of the most commonly used pesticides: atrazine, alachlor, carbofuran, cyanazine, and metolachlor. Pesticides were detected in only 16 samples. All the detections were at low concentrations, with only one being over 1 μg/L. The study concluded that if pesticides were being transported by the groundwater, they were below a μg/L (ppb). / Master of Science

The Eastern Shore of Virginia is a narrow peninsula separating the Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. Residents of the rural counties of Accomack and Northampton County share a strong sense of cultural identity based on geography, rooted in a distinct communal sense of place reinforced by an agricultural lifestyle. Storytelling around dinner tables and on front porches at dusk, speeches at high school graduations, family recipes talked through in a grandmother’s kitchen – it is through oral language that Eastern Shore people have primarily shared the knowledge that sustains their sense of communal identity. Oral knowledge of farming techniques and land use are handed down generation by generation through material lessons in the fields and woods. The most natural and effective research method for understanding Eastern Shore culture and its peoples’ sense of place is the collection of oral histories. The interviews collected for the Eastern Shore Stories project focus on farm life on the Eastern Shore of Virginia in the mid-twentieth century, before the widespread use of electricity, tractors, or chemicals. The stories from the interviews seem quaint individually – nostalgic stories of how things used to be – but as a body of interviews, they accrue a weight and a coherence that offer interesting counterpoints to pervasive assumptions about progress and technology. It is those interesting counterpoints that this dissertation explores. This researcher expected to hear about plowing behind a team of mules and scratching out potatoes. She did not expect to hear retired farmers speak of the loneliness of modern farming, of how 2,500 acres used to support fifty families and now barely supports one. What emerged from the collective interviews was a sense that the industrialization of agriculture in this local community has caused unforeseen losses and those losses, however intangible, have been deleterious. Despite this, people from the Eastern Shore struggle to retain a sense of communal identity, defined by geography and familial connections. Their sense of belonging to this particular place persists in the face of rapid technological and cultural changes, creating tension between the place as it was and the place as it evolves in the twenty-first century.

Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes abstract and vita. "November 2006" Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-178).

Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes final project proposal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-178, 37-44).