Maschaug Pond is a coastal
lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...
in
Westerly,
Washington County, Rhode Island
Washington County, known locally as South County, is a county located in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. As of the 2020 census, the population was 129,839. Rhode Island counties have no governmental functions other than as court administrat ...
,
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
.
Located at , it is one of nine such lagoons (often referred to as "salt ponds") in southern Rhode Island.
A "small, brackish pond",
it is not permanently connected to the
Block Island Sound
Block Island Sound is a marine sound in the open Atlantic Ocean, approximately wide, separating Block Island from the coast of mainland Rhode Island. On the west, it extends to Montauk Point on the eastern tip of Long Island, as well as P ...
, and is largely bordered by the Misquamicut Club golf course. Nests of the
piping plover
The piping plover (''Charadrius melodus'') is a small sand-colored, Passerellidae, sparrow-sized wader, shorebird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel beaches in North America. The adult has yellow-orange-red legs, a black band acro ...
, which has been federally designated as a
threatened species
A threatened species is any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which is vulnerable to extinction in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensatio ...
, have been documented within the watershed.
Its watershed covers ; is occupied by water. Maschaug itself has a surface area of , while nearby Little Maschaug Pond is . The pond averages deep, and has a salinity level of approximately 7
parts per thousand
In science and engineering, the parts-per notation is a set of pseudo-units to describe the small values of miscellaneous dimensionless quantities, e.g. mole fraction or mass fraction.
Since these fractions are quantity-per-quantity measures ...
, too low to sustain the growth of
eelgrass Eelgrass is a common name for several plants and may refer to:
* '' Zostera'', marine eelgrass
* '' Vallisneria'', freshwater eelgrass
See also
*'' Potamogeton compressus'', known as eel-grass pondweed
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