Coastal Ecosystem Management in Rhode Island: The Role of MapCoast

Contributors: Janet Freedman and James Boyd, R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council

Millions of dollars are spent each year by state and federal agencies on restoration projects, habitat enhancement, coastal erosion, dredging, and other projects.

Most of these projects are along the shoreline or adjacent to it, in the realm of MapCoast’s target area, where there are little, if any, existing up-to-date data available from resource inventory maps such as bathymetry, soil chemical and physical properties, or geological data.

As the federally designated policy and regulatory agency for Rhode Island’s coastal zone, the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) has particular interest in a standardized soil-habitat mapping protocol to improve coastal ecosystem management decisions. Using more detailed soil and sediment data, bathymetry, and side-scan sonar imagery developed through the MapCoast Partnership, the CRMC can be much more effective in assessing suitable habitat restoration sites for coastal wetlands, eelgrass, and shellfish. The MapCoast data will offer a much higher level of detail to determine priority restoration sites and will result in more successful and cost-effective restoration efforts.

These detailed data sets can also provide valuable information for the assessment of dredging needs and management of dredged materials in the coastal environment. They will allow for better selection of areas for new dredging, limiting the amount of material that has no reuse potential and avoiding sensitive habitats. For example, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) employed MapCoast protocols for beneficial reuse of the dredged sediment in the Point Judith Pond dredging project—protocols that were fairly new for the COE. The sediment “welded” onto the beaches, as predicted, which proved critical a few months later in mitigating some of the damages in the 2007 Patriot’s Day storm.

The mapping and characterization of benthic habitat will permit much better assessment of ecological conditions and allow coastal managers to evaluate the success (or failure) of habitat restoration efforts and permit-required pollution abatement controls. Additionally, the integration of the MapCoast data will enhance the effectiveness of the CRMC special area management plans (SAMPs) by linking important underwater soil and benthic habitat data with development and implementation of floodplain, hazard mitigation, habitat protection and restoration, and coastal buffer management tools.

Examples of the uses of MapCoast data include:

Floodplain Management in Redevelopment Zones

• Modeling flood inundation zones
• Analyzing impacts of floodplain development on a regional level
• Identifying pre-disaster mitigation strategies
• Mapping safest evacuation routes and shelter locations

Urban Coastal Greenway

• Identifying habitat preservation, restoration, and linkages between important conservation or recreational lands

Greenwich Bay SAMP

• Using sediment profile imagery and bottom imagery, tracking changes in the biota and areas of low dissolved oxygen following mandatory sewer tie-ins, and in the Narragansett Bay Commission’s combined sewer overflow project
• Mapping subaqueous soils for habitat management using side- scan sonar
• Performing habitat and bathymetric mapping for marina activities and identifying habitat restoration sites

South Shore Coastline and Salt Ponds

• Characterizing detailed habitat and restoration potential
• Beneficially reusing dredge materials

Rhode Island is a leader in cutting-edge technology for mapping coastal and submerged soils and sediments. The hope is that MapCoast will pave the way for a new center of excellence in mapping technology and research in Rhode Island and serve as a model for mapping coastal areas elsewhere.

Rhode Island Sea Grant
University of Rhode Island
Graduate School of Oceanography
Narragansett, RI 02882

Coastal Institute
University of Rhode Island
Graduate School of Oceanography
Room 124
Narragansett, RI 02882