River & Stream Continuity Project

The River and Stream Continuity Project began in the year 2000 with a startup grant from the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative. The University of Massachusetts took the lead in convening a group of people from a variety of agencies and organizations who were concerned about the impact of road-stream crossings (culverts, bridges, fords) on fish and other aquatic organism passage.

Since its beginning in 2000 the River and Stream Continuity Project has:

• Compiled extensive information about fish and wildlife passage requirements, culvert design standards, and methodologies for evaluating barriers to fish and wildlife passage
• Developed the “ Massachusetts River and Stream Crossing Standards” to facilitate river and stream continuity as well as fish and wildlife passage.
• Created a field protocol for volunteer assessment of road-stream crossings, including data forms, instructions, and training materials
• Developed a system for scoring crossing structures for their effects on river and stream continuity and aquatic organism passage based on volunteer assessments
• Created an online database for data on road-stream crossings collected by volunteers. All crossings are geo-referenced and information from the database can be easily used in a GIS to depict the location and score of all assessed structures in Massachusetts
• Developed a system for prioritizing all mapped stream segments in Massachusetts into three categories based on information about their importance for protecting rare and endangered species, cold-water fisheries, and anadromous fish runs, designation as a wild and scenic river or inclusion within a designated “Area of Critical Environmental Concern.” Based on this system a statewide GIS coverage for the classification of Massachusetts rivers and streams was created.
• Coordinated volunteer assessments of road-stream crossings throughout Massachusetts , as well as other New England states
• Initiated demonstration projects to mitigate known barriers to aquatic organism passage on high-priority stream
• Developed workshops, presentations and other educational material on the subject of river and stream continuity and the Massachusetts River and Stream Crossing Standards