MassBays conducts regular assessments of trends and conditions in the Bays, culminating in State of the Bays reporting as required under the Clean Water Act, §320. MassBays has shared that information through written reports and meetings. Outcomes from those efforts are included below.
Beginning with our Blueprint for the Bays, MassBays has committed to provide information at a finer scale than ever before. Using a detailed Ecosystem Delineation and Assessment, we can focus in on individual embayments, rocky shoreline areas, and beaches to examine conditions and trends over time. MassBays' Regional Service Providers in turn will provide technical assistance at the local level, guided by on-the-ground priorities, to improve conditions.
In August 2022, MassBays launched an online viewer to share federal, state, and local monitoring data -- a more up-to-the-moment version of the State of the Bays. Click on the link below and dive into water quality and habitat data made available by the new interactive Ecohealth Tracking Tool.
Up-to-the-moment state of the Bays reporting: The Ecohealth Tracking Tool
The new Ecohealth Tracking Tool provides a gateway for the public, scientists, and policy makers to interact with coastal habitat and water quality data across the MassBays region. Users can check the status and trends of salt marshes, eelgrass meadows, tidal flats, and diadromous fish habitats. Within each embayment, users can track progress toward MassBays goals for each habitat type. In addition, water quality data are available from thousands of sampling stations, allowing users to find data (including bacteria, nutrients, temperature, and other parameters) from estuaries across the region. Water quality stations can be selected to view a time series of the data and to see if measurements are within healthy thresholds.
Additional Resources for
2015 State of the Bays
One hundred attendees joined the Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Program (MassBays) for a one-day symposium to look at the past, present, and future of the bays. The symposium took place on April 15, 2015 at the Cambridge Innovation Center, Boston. Presenters summarized the latest data on a number of indicators of conditions in the Bays.The presentations were compiled into proceedings:
2015 State of the Bays Proceedings
Supporters: The Nature Conservancy, dpict, and The Marine & Oceanographic Technology Network.