The National Estuarine Research Reserve System developed a nationwide monitoring program to explore how natural events and human activities affect the health of coastal ecosystems. As part of this program four automated instruments, called dataloggers, will be permanently deployed at the CBNERR-MD components. The dataloggers will measure and record water level, temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, and water clarity (turbidity) every fifteen minutes. These data will be used by scientists to monitor short and long-term changes of the water chemistry. The dataloggers are a central part of a larger monitoring effort that also includes weather stations and biomonitoring programs.

National Estuarine Research Reserves also collect data on the level of nutrients (ammonium, nitrate, nitrite, ortho-phosphate) in the water. Nutrient sampling is completed on a monthly basis at each of the water quality stations. Monitoring nutrients is important in the Chesapeake Bay region because scientists have found a positive relationship between the amount of nutrients in the water and primary production. This relationship is one of the primary drivers of water quality in the region.

Real-time weather and water quality data from Otter Point Creek and Jug Bay are available from the NERRS Centralized Data Management Office (http://cdmo.baruch.sc.edu/).