Conserving land is critical for the health of the watershed and is still a priority in the revised 2025 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. This Agreement strives to permanently protect an additional 2 million acres by 2040, on top of the 1.8 million acres protected through the 2014 Watershed Agreement. The goal is to protect critical landscapes in order to protect water quality, enhance biodiversity, support sustainable livelihoods, bolster local economies, honor cultural heritage, and protect the mission and resilience of military installations. The protected lands indicator examines all valuable lands (which includes land to conserve for farms, forests, wildlife habitat, and cultural and natural heritage) and compares them to the land protected with the Chesapeake Conservation Partnership goal to protect 30% of the land by 2030. The data used in the 2025 report card was from 2022, and the data used in the 2026 report card was from 2024.
More information about this indicator is at Chesapeake Data.
How is it measured?
Protected lands is measured by the area of land protected. Land can be protected by different groups such as federal, state, local, private, non-governmental organizations, Native American, and other.
Threshold levels
The area of land protected is compared to the goal of all valuable lands to protect to reach 30% protection of lands in the watershed by 2030.