Road-Stream Crossing Assessments
Starting in the 2020 field season, PRWC began surveying road-stream crossings in the Pomperaug Watershed following protocol from the North Atlantic Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative (NAACC). PRWC participates in the assessment of road-stream crossings for non-tidal streams and rivers using NAACC's data collection forms and training materials.
Aquatic life passage is difficult and sometimes impossible when streams and rivers and fragmented by inadequate stream crossings. Through these assessments, data collected by field assessors are submitted to NAACC and processed to be classified and listed in their database. This helps provide mapped information on culverts, bridges, or crossings that may need to be prioritized for repair or replacement to improve the connectivity of the stream or river.
For more information, see PRWC's road-stream crossing assessment fact sheet.
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Road-Stream Crossing Assessment Presentation
This road-stream crossing presentation offers a broad overview of the components of road-stream crossings, NAACC's data collection protocol and data center, the results of PRWC's evaluations of road-stream crossing assessments for aquatic life passage in Woodbury, CT, and the role of road-stream crossings in building community climate resilience.
Road-Stream Crossing Assessment Reports
These reports present an overview of road-stream crossing conditions in the Pomperaug Watershed towns of Southbury and Woodbury as assessed by PRWC following NAACC protocols. Crossings identified in these reports as high priority for infrastructure improvements were identified as such because they pose the greatest barrier to the movement of aquatic life and threaten the connectivity of our rivers and streams.
Multiple criteria can and should be used to prioritize crossings for upgrades including ecological benefit, flood risk, infrastructure condition, and more. The National Aquatic Barrier Inventory & Prioritization Tool is an excellent interactive resource to help determine which road-stream crossings are high priority based on criteria selected by the user.
More frequent and severe natural hazard events in the future will increase the risk of culvert failures throughout our watershed. The damage resulting from these culvert failures and the subsequent flood damage to roads and other developed areas will be costly. Proactively replacing culverts that have been identified in these reports as problematic across a number of variables (constriction, alignment, condition, scour, barrier, and passibility) is a single solution to reduce infrastructure losses and increase the climate resiliency of both natural and developed spaces.