Excess nutrients have led to eutrophication of the Chesapeake Bay, USA. It has been suggested that oyster restoration can play an important role in achieving water quality goals in the Bay. An optimal control bioeconomic model is applied to the management of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, taking into account nutrient removal by the oysters. Optimal management of oyster harvests in the Bay reduces the cost of attaining water quality goals by 4–6% relative to an open access fishery. A “naïve” management optimization that maximizes discounted net revenues from oyster harvests but that does not take into account their nitrogen impacts performs almost as well as the fully optimal solution. Sensitivity analyses show that the optimal oyster harvest depends on the cost of reducing nitrogen loadings from point and nonpoint sources through best management practices. Further, denitrification by living oysters is a much more important process than nutrient removal through harvest.

营养物质过多导致美国切萨皮克湾富营养化。有人建议，牡蛎修复可以在实现海湾水质目标中发挥重要作用。考虑到牡蛎去除营养物质，将最佳控制生物经济模型应用于切萨皮克湾的牡蛎管理。与开放式渔业相比，对海湾牡蛎收获的最佳管理将实现水质目标的成本降低了4–6％。“天真”的管理优化可以最大程度地提高牡蛎收获的折扣净收入，但不考虑其氮素影响，其效果几乎与完全优化的解决方案一样好。敏感性分析表明，牡蛎的最佳收获取决于通过最佳管理方法减少点源和非点源氮负荷的成本。此外，活牡蛎的反硝化作用比通过收获去除营养物更为重要。