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Gwynns Falls Watershed History
Early settlers to the Gwynns Falls region found a landscape dominated by forests, which they cut for
timber and fuelwood, and later cleared for agriculture. By the mid-1700s, settlers had cleared 20%
to 30% of the forested land in the mid-Atlantic region. By the mid-1800s, as much as 50% of the
land had been cleared for agriculture, primarily grain and tobacco crops. The Gwynns Falls was
further developed to take advantage of its water power potential. By 1900, more than two million
people inhabited the Baltimore-Washington-Annapolis region and only about 30% of the Gwynns
Falls Watershed remained under forest cover.
By 1990, approximately 8.5 million people lived in the Baltimore-Washington-Annapolis metropolitan
area, which has become the fourth largest urban center in the Nation behind Chicago, Los Angeles,
and New York. Land use in the region had shifted from agriculture to residential and commercial
development, especially in places like the Gwynns Falls Watershed. Today, the watershed is home to
more than 246,000 people.
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