Great Lakes & Chesapeake Bay

Alexandra and the Expedition Blue Planet crew travel to this region to explore how a systems approach to watershed management ensures the quality and quantity of this most vital resource. There is no better place to explore this subject than the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world.

The Great Lakes hold 90% of North America's freshwater and yet 24 billion gallons of untreated sewage flow into the great lakes each day; each day one football field of its  wetlands is lost. Alexandra will interview scientists and other experts who will speak to why it is that the Great Lakes system could be on the verge of a sudden collapse, what that means for the 33 million people that call the Great Lakes water basin home and how the problems that plague this system are representative of water crises around the globe.

The second stop along exploring systems and watersheds is the Chesapeake Bay, where Expedition Blue Planet arrives after four months of exploring key facets of the water conversation all across North America: how quantities of water are managed, what our impacts on water quality are, and how critical a systems approach is to sustaining a healthy watershed. Here, Alexandra and her crew bring it all home by learning about how people are writing their own water stories, transforming runoff to renewal for communities, their economies and their ecosystems.

Many of us have lost touch with what a healthy water system such as a bay, lake or watershed looks like. Chesapeake Bay is a case in point and its history bears witness to the marine riches that once were. When Europeans first arrived at Chesapeake Bay they found a bay that rich with sea turtles and ocean floors paved with oysters.

Ultimately, our history will be written in water and the choices we makes each and every day as both consumers and citizens. The time to write ourselves into that story is now.