Science Seminar: “Risk of Failure” of road-stream crossings

Join us for a Science Seminar led by University of Massachusetts Amherst Extension Associate Professor Scott Jackson on a pilot project in the Deerfield River watershed in Massachusetts to assess and prioritize road-stream crossings based on transportation vulnerability and ecological disruption -- information can be used to inform crossing upgrades or replacements.

During the one-hour presentation, Jackson will describe the preexisting methods used to evaluate the habitat-fragmentation impacts of road-stream crossings, and the new methods developed to assess the vulnerability of road-stream crossings and critical infrastructure to extreme flooding in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. He will also demonstrate the new Stream Crossings Explorer, an online data visualization tool with information related to aquatic connectivity and ecological aspects of rivers as well as risk of failure of road-stream crossings and associated disruption of emergency medical services. This tool was designed for state and municipal agencies, local decision-makers, regional planners, conservation organizations, transportation planners, and natural resource managers.

Event details: The presentation will be held on Thursday, October 12th, from noon to 1:00 p.m. in the large auditorium of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Regional Office, located at 300 Westgate Center Drive in Hadley, Mass. Please feel free to bring your lunch. You may also view a live stream broadcast of the presentation at: https://www.fws.gov/northeast/live.html

About the presenter: Scott Jackson is an Extension Association Professor in the Department of Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts, and the coordinator of the North Atlantic Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative. His research interests include aquatic connectivity, wetland assessment and monitoring, impacts of roads and highways on wildlife, landscape-based ecological assessment, ecology and breeding biology of amphibians.

For more information: Contact North Atlantic LCC Communications Coordinator