The heritage, history, and economic prosperity of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is closely connected to the ocean. The relationship with the ocean is unmistakably pronounced in the harbors and ports scattered along the Massachusetts coastline. Harbors played a critical role in the establishment of successful and thriving communities in Massachusetts. Gloucester Harbor is America's oldest fishing port and has endured substantial changes in economic, cultural, and environmental conditions since the 15th century. The harbor, fishing industries, and marine environmental quality have dramatically changed since Gloucester was settled by Europeans in 1623. The value of harbor and port infrastructure and marine resources, however, remain an important commodity to the maritime heritage, economic prosperity, and ecological sustainability of Massachusetts.

The Gloucester Harbor Characterization is a resource guide that describes human and natural resources of one of Massachusetts's oldest and productive harbors. The resource guide is a tool to support resource management strategies and interdisciplinary planning by investigating and characterizing historic and current anthropogenic alterations and influences, present-day environmental quality, and marine resources in the harbor.

The Gloucester Harbor Characterization examines and describes the environmental history of development and human influences, characterizes current understanding of environmental quality, examines lobster fishing and lobster population structure, investigates fish community structure, and describes seafloor habitat. Both the full report and individual chapters are available in PDF format:

Full Report (PDF, 1.91M)

Cover and Introduction. (PDF, 218K)

Chapter 1: The environmental history and current characteristics of Gloucester Harbor. (PDF, 533K)

Chapter 2: Synthesis and review of environmental conditions in Gloucester Harbor. (PDF, 323K)

Chapter 3: Lobstering in Gloucester Harbor: Distribution, relative abundance, and population characteristics of American lobster (Homarus americanus). (PDF, 341K)

Chapter 4: The relative abundance, distribution, composition, and life history characteristics of fishes in Gloucester Harbor. (PDF, 921K)

Chapter 5: Identification of the type and quality of Gloucester Harbor coastal and seafloor habitats: Synthesis of harbor and regional studies. (PDF, 554K)