Supporting healthy and resilient coastal communities and habitats
The Narragansett Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve is one of 30 National Estuarine Research Reserves located around the country. Established to provide long-term protection of coastal lands so they can serve as platforms for research, education and recreation. The Reserve is supported and administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and managed by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.
System Wide Monitoring Program
NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) acknowledges the importance of both long-term environmental monitoring programs and data and information dissemination through the support of the NERRS System-wide Monitoring Program (SWMP). The goal of the SWMP is to “identify and track short-term variability and long-term changes in the integrity and biodiversity of representative estuarine ecosystems and coastal watersheds for the purpose of contributing to effective national, regional and site specific coastal zone management.” This comprehensive program consists of three phased components:
- estuarine water quality monitoring
- biodiversity monitoring
- land-use and habitat change analysis
