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Narragansett Bay (Rhode Island, USA) is an estuary undergoing changes from a combination of rising water temperatures, nutrient fluxes, and human uses. In this study, we created an ecosystem food web model and evaluated its ability to predict functional group biomasses. Specifically, we used Ecopath to construct 2 mass-balanced models covering different time periods in Narragansett Bay: a historical model using data from 1994-1998 and a present-day model that represents 2014-2018. With the historical model as a starting point, we used Ecosim fit to time series data and projected forward to present-day values, forcing the model with both phytoplankton biomass and fishing mortality. The biomass of most mid- and upper trophic level groups increased by 2018, with the exception of carnivorous benthos, which experienced a large decline. There were changes in the composition of fisheries, with a large increase in recreational benthivorous fish landings and a decrease in commercial landings of planktivorous fish and suspension feeding benthos. The inclusion of fishing mortality and phytoplankton biomass as forcing functions, as well as adjusting the vulnerability levels of prey, greatly improved our model fits for all functional groups with the exception of gelatinous zooplankton. Our ecosystem model was able to correctly predict the direction of change for all fish and fished invertebrate groups with a relatively high degree of precision, particularly for the upper trophic levels. Thus, this ecosystem model is broadly applicable and suitable to project trends in the Narragansett Bay food web associated with localized and adaptive ecosystem-based management.

We investigate a mechanism for producing double-lows and double-highs in the semi-diurnal tide by selective amplification of higher harmonics in a resonant gulf. A double low water is observed at Providence, RI, near the head of Narragansett Bay on days when there is a flattening of the low water tidal curve at Newport, at the mouth of the bay. The flattening is caused by an unusually large quarter-diurnal component to the tide at Newport. The quarter diurnal component has the right phase (a maximum close to the time of the minimum in the semi-diurnal tide) to produce a prolonged flattening of the tidal curve around low water. The natural period of Narragansett Bay (for quarter-wavelength resonance) is close to 4 h and the quarter diurnal tide is amplified, relative to the semi-diurnal tide, within the bay. The selective amplification of the higher harmonic further prolongs the flattening effect at Providence and, occasionally, is sufficient to create a double low water at the head of the bay from quarter and semi-diurnal tides alone. More often, though, a sixth-diurnal harmonic produced within the bay, added to the flattened low water at Providence, creates the double low water. This mechanism of selective amplification of tidal harmonics could be relevant to double tides elsewhere.

This article explores the diplomatic negotiations that U.S. Navy Commander Richard W. Meade conducted in Samoa in 1872. The resulting agreement that came to be known as “the Meade Treaty” was the first the United States negotiated with Samoa, but scholars usually have not explored the details of it and the process that produced it because the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty. Meade’s motivations and actions in Samoa provide a case study in how the interactions of naval officers, business leaders, islanders, and diplomats converged to produce early U.S. diplomacy in the Pacific. The article sketches the situation in Samoa in 1872 when Commander Meade and his ship, the uss Narragansett, arrived. The role of the United States in the Pacific was changing in the last third of the 19th Century, and Commander Meade’s motivations, influences, and actions illustrate the new wave of U.S. Pacific expansion during the years after the American Civil War.

Underwater acoustics is one of the primary areas of emphasis in the Ocean Engineering Department at the University of Rhode Island, the first Ocean Engineering program in the United States. The program offers Bachelors, Masters (thesis and non-thesis options) and Ph.D. degrees in Ocean Engineering. These programs are based at the Narragansett Bay campus, providing access to a living laboratory for student learning. Some key facilities of the program are an acoustics tank, a 100-foot-long wave tank, and currently the R/V Endeavor, a UNOLS oceanographic research vessel operated by the University of Rhode Island. A new Regional Class vessel is anticipated in 2021. At the graduate level, students are actively involved in research focused in areas such as acoustical oceanography, propagation modeling, acoustic positioning and navigation, geoacoustic inversion, marine mammal acoustics, ocean acoustic instrumentation, and transducers. An overview of classroom learning and ongoing research will be provided, along with information regarding the requirements of entry into the program.

What insights might attending to the cyclical history of colonially imposed environmental change experienced by Indigenous peoples offer to critical intellectual projects concerned with race? How might our understanding of race shift if we took Indigenous peoples' concerns with the usurpation and transformation of land seriously? Motivated by these broader questions, in this chapter, I deploy an approach to the critical inquiry of race that I have tentatively been calling anticolonial environmental sociology. As a single iteration of the anticolonial environmental sociology of race, this chapter focuses on Native (American) perspectives on land and experiences with colonialism. I argue that thinking with Native conceptualizations of land forces us to confront the ecomateriality of race that so often escapes sight in conventional analyses. The chapter proceeds by first theorizing the ecomateriality of race by thinking with recent critical theorizing on colonial racialization, alongside Native conceptualizations of land. To further explicate this theoretical argument, I then turn to an historical excavation of the relations between settlers, Natives, and the land in Rhode Island that is organized according to spatiotemporal distinctions that punctuate Native land relations in this particular global region: the Reservation, the Plantation, and the Narragansett.

This work utilizes remotely sensed thermal data to understand how the release of thermal pollution from the Brayton Point Power Station (BPPS) affected the temperature behavior of Narragansett Bay. Building upon previous work with Landsat 5, a multi-satellite analysis is conducted that incorporates 582 scenes from Landsat 5, Landsat 7, and Landsat 8 over 1984–2021 to explain seasonal variability in effluent impacts, contrast data after the effluent ceased in 2011, identify patterns in temperature before and after effluent ceased using unsupervised learning, and track how recent warming trends compare to the BPPS impact. Stopping the thermal effluent corresponds to an immediate cooling of 0.26 ± 0.1°C in the surface temperature of Mt. Hope Bay with respect to the rest of Narragansett Bay with greater cooling of 0.62 ± 0.2°C found near Brayton Point; though, cooling since the period of maximal impact (1993–2000) totals 0.53 ± 0.2°C in Mt. Hope Bay and 1.04 ± 0.2°C at Brayton Point. During seasons with lower solar radiation (winter) and lower mean river input (autumn and late summer), the BPPS effluent impact is more prominent. The seasonal differences between the high impact and low impact periods indicate that river input played an important role in the heat balance when emissions were lower, but surface fluxes dominated when emissions were higher. Putting the BPPS effluent in context, Landsat data indicates that Narragansett Bay warmed 0.5–1.2°C over the period of measurement at an average rate of 0.23 ± 0.1°C/decade and that net warming in Mt. Hope Bay is near zero. This trend implies that Narragansett Bay has experienced climatic warming over the past four decades on the scale of the temperature anomaly in Mt. Hope Bay caused by the BBPS effluent.

This masters research project will assess the jurisdiction and impact of state environmental regulations upon the recently created Narragansett Tribe of Indians Reservation located in Charlestown, Rhode Island. Native American lands held in federal trust are generally immune to state civil jurisdiction; specifically, state environmental regulatory law. State and local governments are often faced with difficult environmental management problems created by the inapplicability of various state and local regulatory jurisdictions. Do State of Rhode Island environmental regulations such as ISDS, solid waste disposal permitting, soil erosion ordinances, and state wetland permitting, etc. apply to Native American reservation lands within its borders? Does the State of Rhode Island have a regulatory role in the use and development of Indian reservations within its borders? Which entity has greater regulatory authority, the State or Tribe? This paper will examine the policy issue and legal implications of the applicability of State land use regulatory jurisdiction over the Narragansett Tribe of Indians Reservation and any future "Indian lands" within Rhode Island. To what extent has Native American sovereignty over reservation lands been eroded or expanded by case law and state and federal statutory law? In addition, how does the changing legal status impact policy issues? Today's "Indian lands" or Native American Reservations are immune to certain state civil and administrative law jurisdiction as provided by federal treaty and statute. Absent statutory proviso, state jurisdiction is interpreted by the judicial system based upon subject matter and geographic jurisdiction. Most Indian lands held in either fee simple or federal trust are subject to a checkerboard pattern of jurisdiction (federal, state and tribal) which may create a void of environmental regulation with the absence of state regulatory power. The purpose of this research project is to review federal and state policy, legislation, statutory law and case law to determine the applicability of state environmental regulations upon the Narragansett Tribe of Indians Reservation; in particular, the recently acquired conservation land conveyed through agreement with the State of Rhode Island. In addition, the applicability of municipal regulations (i.e., zoning, etc.) will be addressed. The analysis of the vanous applicable laws as well as the preconditions and agreements entered into by the State of Rhode Island and the Narragansett Tribe of Indians will define the appropriate federal, state and tribal environmental regulatory jurisdiction. Finally, the paper will discuss the future role of state regulatory police power and its application upon any additional future reservation land.

A study on the distribution of quahog (Mercenaria mercenaria (Linnaeus 1758)) larvae in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island was conducted during a single summer season in 1995. Samples of the larvae were collected weekly using an electric bilge pump and a 60 ~m mesh plankton net at two depths (0.3 m and 1.6 m) at five sampling stations distributed landward along the West shore, 12.6 km to 30.6 km from Rhode Island Sound. Three stations were located in the upper estuary, i.e., Upper Bay, and two stations were in the lower estuary, i.e., Upper

This research aims to address how to increase support and understanding for coastal and marine policy as well as coastal habitat restoration in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. More specifically, the objective is to determine both the influences of environmental education on public attitudes and how environmental education influences the public's support for habitat restoration and protection policies. From this research one can discern whether environmental education plays a significant role in attitude formation, which can prove to be important for public support of policy. Research was conducted at and near an environmental education facility, the Save the Bay Aquarium in Newport, Rhode Island. Using an in-person questionnaire, three subgroups (Entering, Exiting, and Non-visitor) were surveyed. The survey was designed to gather data about participant’s environmental worldviews, knowledge of the marine environment, level of policy support, and demographics. Results were analyzed using a step-wise regression to determine the factors that predict levels of policy support. This study shows that in Rhode Island, respondents have a high level of policy support. That support is not directly correlated to visiting the educational facility, but correlates more directly to environmental beliefs and values. Although the data show there is support for policy, they also suggest that there is still opportunity to enhance the public’s support for various environmental policy initiative in Rhode Island. It is hoped that the results of this study will be used by Save the Bay and similar institutions to 1) evaluate existing and future educational programs and 2) facilitate reflection about organizational roles and responsibilities related to influencing the public’s knowledge of and support for environmental policy.

Macroalgal blooms occur worldwide and have the potential to cause severe ecological and economic damage. Narragansett Bay, RI is a eutrophic system that experiences summer macroalgal blooms composed mostly of Ulva compressa and Ulva rigida. All Ulva species have isomorphic, biphasic life cycles, and the relative contribution of the haploid and diploid life history stages to bloom formation is poorly understood. In this study, we used flow cytometry to assess ploidy levels of U. compressa and U. rigida populations from five sites in Narragansett Bay, RI, USA. Both haploid gametophytes and diploid sporophytes were present for both species. Sites ranged from a relative overabundance of gametophytes to a relative overabundance of sporophytes, compared to the null model prediction of √2 gametophytes to 1 sporophyte. We also assessed growth rates and measured cell sizes to investigate potential differences between life history phases. We found no significant differences in growth rate between ploidy levels for either species. Sporophyte cells were significantly larger than gametophyte cells in U. compressa. Our results indicate the presence of both phases of each of the two dominant bloom forming species throughout the bloom season, and represent one of the first studies of in situ Ulva life cycle dynamics.

The population of the northeast region’s native rabbit, the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis; NEC), has declined by more than 80% in the last 50 years. In 2006, it was listed as a candidate species for protection under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. In 2010, a captive breeding program was developed to help reverse this trend, and islands were identified as having the potential to serve as ideal release sites for captive-bred NEC. Two islands were chosen as possible release sites: Nomans Land Island National Wildlife Refuge in Chilmark, Massachusetts; and Patience Island, located in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. To evaluate their suitability as release sites, an intensive habitat analysis was conducted on each island. The major habitat types on Patience Island also were delineated manually. To inform future releases of NEC on islands, an impact assessment was conducted on Penikese Island, which is known to have hosted previously a population of introduced cottontails. A pilot release of NEC was conducted on Patience Island and the population was monitored using radiotelemetry from April 2012 to February 2013. Rabbit locations were triangulated and home ranges were calculated using an adaptive kernel density estimator. The impact assessment on Penikese Island yielded inconclusive results, but the results of the habitat analysis on Patience Island and Nomans Land Island NWR indicate that both islands are well-suited to support a population of NEC. Survivability was high on Patience Island, and all rabbits spent the majority of their time in bramblevine thicket and mixed forest habitats. My findings indicate that islands could play a significant role in the recovery of NEC, and releasing NEC on islands should be strongly considered as a management strategy to help preclude the need for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

To convince investors to risk their money for him and colonizers to risk their lives for him, Gilbert first had to establish his legal right as an Englishman to settle North America. The leader in this endeavor was John Dee, who quoted ancient sources and sixteenth-century travel narratives to contend that England’s exploration of North America predated other European activities there. He wrote primarily in manuscript to exclude foreign rivals and potential enemies from the conversation. Before researching the best location to plant their colony, Gilbert’s supporters had to determine where Spanish hegemony in the Americas ended. Leading the charge was Richard Hakluyt the elder, who suggested settling in temperate climates near a river’s mouth adjoining Native American habitations to bring the colonists into contact with trade partners and protect them from seaborne attacks by rival Europeans. Gilbert needed crops to eat and trade—another prerequisite for his colony—and he and his supporters determined that Norumbega’s Narragansett Bay explored by Italian Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524 was the best site to colonize. Even though Gilbert’s collaborator George Peckham recognized that thousands of Native Americans lived in and around the bay, he discredited their land rights on account of their pagan religious beliefs and what he wrongly considered to be inefficient farming methods.

We examine the impact of water quality in Narragansett Bay on housing prices in coastal towns and municipalities using a hedonic housing-price model. Unlike other hedonic studies of water quality, we test whether housing market responds to average water quality or more to extreme events. We also test the spatial and temporal extent of effects of water quality on housing prices. We find that poor coastal water quality, measured in terms of the concentration of chlorophyll, has a negative impact on housing prices that diminishes with distance from the shoreline. Furthermore, our finding suggests that housing prices are most influenced by the extreme environmental conditions, which may be accompanied by unpleasant odors, discoloration and even fish kills. We further predict potential increases in home values associated under water quality improvement scenarios and find an increase in the values of homes in coastal communities along Narragansett Bay of about $18 million up to $136 million.

Narragansett Bay is an urban estuary that historically has been impacted by long-term discharge of sanitary wastewater (WW) effluents. High-density water sampling was conducted in Narragansett Bay, RI, USA, in an effort to understand the distribution and behavior of sucralose, an artificial sweetener that has shown utility as a sanitary wastewater tracer. Water samples were collected at sixty-seven sites and analyzed for sucralose, whose performance was compared to other tracers present in wastewater effluents. Concentrations of sucralose were much higher than the other tracers measured, carbamazepine and caffeine, ranging from 18 to 3180 ng/L and corresponded well with salinity (r2 = 0.88), demonstrating conservative behavior throughout the Bay. Mapped interpolation data using an empirical bayesian kriging model clearly show the spatial trends of WW and how estuarine processes influence dilution and dispersion throughout the Bay. These findings provide further evidence of the efficacy of sucralose as a wastewater tracer in large urban estuaries where continuous high-volume discharge of WW occur.

Over the past decade, nitrogen (N) loads to Narragansett Bay have decreased by more than 50%. These reductions were, in large part, the direct result of multiple wastewater treatment facility upgrades to tertiary treatment, a process which employs N removal. Here we document ecosystem response to the N reductions and assess how the distribution of sewage N in Narragansett Bay has changed from before, during, and shortly after the upgrades. While others have observed clear responses when data were considered annually, our seasonal and regional comparisons of pre- and post-tertiary treatment dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) concentrations and Secchi depth data, from bay-wide surveys conducted periodically from the early 1970s through 2016, resulted in only a few subtle differences. Thus we sought to use stable isotope data to assess how sewage N is incorporated into the ecology of the Bay and how its distribution may have changed after the upgrades. The nitrogen (δ(15)N) and carbon (δ(13)C) stable isotope measurements of particulate matter served as a proxy for phytoplankton, while macroalgae served as short-term integrators of water column bio-available N, and hard clams (Mercenaria mercenaria) as integrators of water column production. In contrast to other estuarine stable isotope studies that have observed an increased influence of isotopically lower marine N when sewage N is reduced, the opposite has occurred in Narragansett Bay. The tertiary treatment upgrades have increased the effluent δ(15)N values by at least 2‰. The plants and animals throughout Narragansett Bay have similarly increased by 1–2‰, on average. In contrast, the δ(13)C values measured in particulate matter and hard clams have declined by about the same amount. The δ(15)N results indicated that, even after the N-reductions, sewage N still plays an important role in supporting primary and secondary production throughout the Bay. However, the δ(13)C suggest that overall net production in Narragansett Bay has decreased. In the five years after the major wastewater treatment facilities came on-line for nutrient removal, oligotrophication has begun but sewage remains the dominant source of N to Narragansett Bay.

King Philip’s War (1675–1678) was both a colonial war and an Indigenous resistance movement, which erupted in the summer of 1675 in Wampanoag country and in Plymouth Colony, but quickly spread throughout coastal and interior Native homelands and New England. While sometimes regarded as a singular moment of conquest in the birth of New England, it also was known as the “first Indian war.” Thus, conflicts over land and jurisdiction among New England colonists and Native nations continued not only until the end of King Philip’s War in 1678 but through nearly one hundred years of warfare and diplomacy, in which Native people in the Northeast sought to adapt to colonization and draw settlers into Indigenous protocols and networks.

This article explores historical processes of land dispossession through an in-depth case of the Narragansett Indians of present-day Rhode Island. Using an eventful historical methodology, I uncover three primary mechanisms, each temporally situated, that dispossessed the Narragansett tribe of their land: violence, debt, and state governance. I proceed by first considering Narragansett life before the incursion of settler colonialism. Following this brief exploration, I turn to an analysis of both the historical events and processes that dispossessed the Narragansett of their land. This analysis contributes to the literature on empire and colonialism, as well as theoretical debates on primitive accumulation and settler colonialism, by exploring and identifying the mechanisms by which primitive accumulation operated within a specific settler-colonial context. In the end, I argue that sociology must expand analytically and conceptually to include indigenous experiences of ongoing dispossession in order to end the disciplines complicity in the elimination of the native.

The upper Stephanian fern Sphenopteris hadrophylla Knight, described originally in an unpublished thesis on the Sabero Coalfield in León, NW Spain, is now validly introduced on the basis of new, more complete, material collected from the La Magdalena Coalfield in León. This includes sporangiate pinnae interpreted as possibly attributable to Discopteris Stur. A holotype and paratypes are designated from this material. The more fragmentary specimens from Sabero are recorded also. Additional specimens from Villablino (León), El Bierzo (León), Ciñera-Matallana (León), and the Narragansett Basin in New England (U.S.A.) are referred to and partly illustrated, thus demonstrating the wider distribution of the species. Comparisons are made with several species of Stephanian age known from Europe and North America.

Nitrogen is essential in sustaining estuarine ecosystems, particularly lower trophic levels and filter-feeding organisms. However, excess nitrogen is an often-cited cause of coastal ecosystem decline. One of the largest sources of nitrogen in Narragansett Bay, RI, is effluent from wastewater treatment facilities discharging into the head of the Bay. Beginning in 2005, nitrogen reductions at wastewater treatment facilities were implemented to minimize eutrophication and improve water quality. These reductions in nitrogen have led to speculation as to how the Narragansett Bay ecosystem will respond. The filter-feeding clam Mercenaria mercenaria (Quahog) is a prominent component of the Narragansett Bay ecosystem and an economically important resource in Rhode Island. In the northeastern United States, studies of several estuaries have linked nitrogen increases with increased phytoplankton concentrations and faster growth of Quahogs. We evaluated Quahog growth rates to assess how this species has responded to nutrient reductions in the bay. In 2016 and 2017, we collected and aged Quahogs from 6 sites in Narragansett Bay along a gradient of historical nitrogen loading and primary production. We found that Quahog growth rates still vary through space, as previously documented, but despite the recent 50% reduction in nitrogen loading to Narragansett Bay, rates were not significantly different from rates reported for Quahogs collected from 1984 and 2005. Our findings suggest that the reduced nitrogen has not had adverse impacts to Quahog growth, and this information can be used to inform the population's dynamics. However, ecosystem responses to the nutrient reductions are ongoing and the ecology of Quahogs should continue to be monitored to ensure the sustainability of this highly valued commercial and recreational fishery in Narragansett Bay.

The Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB) extends alongshore, from Cape Cod, MA to Cape Hatteras, NC and includes major estuarine systems such as Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, Chesapeake Bay and Pamlico Sound. Sea level rise continues to have a dramatic effect on developed watersheds and urban estuaries, which are common to this highly populated region. Tropical cyclones contribute to flooding, which impacts coastal roads, homes, farms, and even fresh water supplies. Research is being applied to improve our understanding of the physical processes that connect estuaries and the coastal ocean and better forecast floods. Advances will result in improved marine policies and coastal resilience.