Document Type

Research Report

Publication Date

12-2013

Abstract

The Massachusetts Bays Program (MBP) contracted with the Urban Harbors Institute (UHI) of the University of Massachusetts Boston to conduct a review of papers, presentations, reports, and other relevant material produced from 1996 (the last CCMP) to present, that might inform the MBP’s update of their Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP). The review focused on five topics identified as priority topics by the MBP: water quality, invasive species, climate change/vulnerability, continuity of estuarine habitat, and estuarine habitat protection in the geographic region of the Mass Bays Program, particularly the 47 nearshore estuaries and embayments identified in the 2012 MBP Estuary Delineation and Assessment study prepared by Geosyntec.

UHI cataloged 539 resources, reviewed a portion-270-of them, and for each of these prepared brief descriptions of the purpose, data used, findings, and recommendations. This information is presented in a spreadsheet which accompanies this memo. Table 1 below summarizes the number of reports by topic, embayment, and region (note that reports could cover more than one topic and be in more than one region, so many are counted more than once).

This memo describes the methods used to identify and review the various resources, provides a summary of the resources and findings by topic (i.e., water quality, invasive species, climate change/vulnerability, continuity of estuarine habitat, and estuarine habitat protection), and offers observations and recommendations for the MBP as they update their CCMP.

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