Freshwater Culvert Assessments, Massachusetts

Across Massachusetts, there are approximately 25,000 culverts and small bridges — many of which are undersized. These pieces of river and roadway infrastructure can create barriers for aquatic habitat and increase the risk of roads washing out during major floods.

Opportunity

In the last few years HW and our partners at IRWA and NRWA assessed culverts across 17 towns in Massachusetts. We used the assessments to help towns prioritize which culverts would offer the greatest benefit for stream habitat and road safety. We uploaded culvert data from each culvert to a public database through the North Atlantic Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative (NAACC), which will help towns manage records for culverts across a geospatial scale.

Solution

The information compiled during this project will also help towns secure funding to replace deteriorated culverts, and is tailored towards grant applications that fund ecological restoration projects.