Assessing the health of a river system as varied and impacted as the Sudbury-Assabet-Concord is a big task. In 2017, OARS, the watershed organization for the three rivers, brought together funding and 52 key stakeholders and technical experts to help create the first Sudbury-Assabet-Concord River report card. Guided by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and OARS, the team of experts and stakeholders identified key indicators of river health and the data needed to measure the status of each indicator.
OARS River Report Card goals
The overarching goal of the report card is to communicate the story of the river’s health to stakeholders and the public and engage them in river stewardship.
This required the team to:
- Identify what stakeholders and the public value about the rivers
- Identify and analyze key indicators of river health
- Capture a current picture of river health against which to measure future changes
- Explain how societal, community, and personal choices affect the river
Stakeholders
Many organizations and individuals contributed significantly to the development of OARS’ first River Report Card.
Initial and follow-up funding was provided by: the Massachusetts Environmental Trust, The Sudbury Foundation, the National Park Service, the Cedar Tree Foundation, the OARS Assabet Fund, The Fleetwing Charitable Foundation Trust, and OARS members.
Project partners: the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science; the US Environmental Protection Agency Region 1; the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection; the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration; the Massachusetts Rivers Alliance; and the Sudbury, Assabet and Concord Wild and Scenic River Stewardship Council.
Stakeholder workshop participants also included: the US Geological Survey; the US Fish & Wildlife Service; the Towns of Acton, Bedford, Billerica, Concord, Hudson, Maynard, Sudbury, and Wayland; the Cities of Framingham and Marlborough; the Watershed organizations for the Charles, Ipswich, Merrimack, Mystic, Nashua and Neponset Rivers; the Friends of Saxonville; the Sudbury Valley Trustees; Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust; Green Acton; the Westborough Land Trust; Concord BioCAN; the Metropolitan Area Planning Council; MassBAYS; Mass Audubon; and consulting firms CEI, Geosyntec, and HydroAnalysis.
Photo credits
Thanks to Dave Griffin (Confluence Visuals), Bill Dennison (University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science), and the OARS photo library. EcoHealth Report Card website by Visual Science.
Funding
