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Bohemia Creek
View of the Bohemia Creek and its shore
Photo credit: DNREC’s WATAR Program
Other watersheds in the Chesapeake Bay Basin

Background

The Bohemia River has headwaters beginning around Middletown, Delaware and then flows through Maryland’s eastern shore draining into Chesapeake Bay.
The Bohemia River is a tributary of the Elk River on the Delmarva Peninsula.

The Delaware portion of the Bohemia Creek is dominated by agricultural land.

Water Quality

EPA established a Total Maximum Daily Load for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment for the entire Chesapeake Bay Watershed. This TMDL requires reductions of approximately 24% for nitrogen and 20% for phosphorus between 2009 and 2025 from all of the Chesapeake watersheds within Delaware. Sediment loads from Delaware’s portion of the Chesapeake must remain at 2009 levels under this TMDL.

Plants and Wildlife

Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), Division of Fish and Wildlife conducts on-going inventories of natural communities as well as rare and declining species, (e.g., state and globally-rare plants, birds, insects, mussels, reptiles, and amphibians). It maintains a database, both electronic and manual, of its findings throughout the state. Learn more about the wildlife and plant communities in this watershed from the DNREC Division of Fish and Wildlife Conservation Programs.

In addition, the Division of Fish and Wildlife, working with the University of Delaware’s Institute for Public Administration – Water Resources Center, maintains online databases about plants and plant communities in Delaware. Learn more about the plant communities in this watershed from the DNREC Division of Fish and Wildlife.

Further Resources

For more detailed information on this watershed, its water quality and resources, check out the following resources:

Delaware TMDLs

Chesapeake Watershed Implementation Plan

Delaware Watershed Plans

Delaware Whole Basin Reports

Friends of the Bohemia

Bohemia Creek quick stats


Square Miles (total): 54.6
Square Miles (DE): 8.8
Population (total)*: 7,833
Population (DE)*: 4,588
States: DE, MD
Counties: DE: New Castle MD: Cecil
*US Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 5-year estimates, 2019

Land use in Bohemia Creek
Land use source: U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 2024, Annual NLCD Collection 1 Science Products (ver. 1.1, June 2025): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P94UXNTS.