Rhode Island

Bristol County Water Authority
Restoring the Ecological Resiliency of the Kickemuit River Estuary (RI)
Remove two fish passage barriers on the Kickemuit River to provide community and ecological resiliency benefits by increasing flood storage capacity of the wetlands, reducing flooding of infrastructure, restoring a tidal estuary, enhancing habitat for estuarine and anadromous species, hydrologically re-connecting the watershed to the estuary and improving water quality. Project will restore salt and brackish marsh habitat in both the lower and upper impoundments and will create an area for salt marsh migration.
$1,391,000

Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation
Test Utility of a Buoyless Gear Location Marking Application for Mobile and Fixed Gear Fishers (RI)
Test the accuracy and utility of an electronic gear location marking application in both mobile and fixed gear fisheries in New England to help refine the buoyless gear marking application. Project will increase the ability of electronic gear location marking to contribute to the reduction of gear conflicts and the transition to ropeless gear to reduce the number of gear entanglements of North Atlantic Right Whales.
$93,861

Groundwork Rhode Island
Urban Tree Planting to Enhance Habitat and Communities (RI)
Train volunteers to manage bird habitat demonstration sites at locations across 4 acres and develop a bird-friendly planting guide to be used in planting 2,000 additional trees in a companion planting project. Project will develop a curriculum for local schools on bird habitat in urban settings, lead eight field trips to demonstration sites, coordinate eight volunteer planting events with 150 volunteers, and install up to 10 educational signs at demonstration areas.
$45,700

Gulf of Maine Research Institute
Building Maximized Retention Electronic Monitoring Capacity in the New England Groundfish Fishery
Support the implementation of the maximized retention electronic monitoring model in the New England groundfish fishery by piloting a third-party dockside monitoring approach to build regional capacity to support 100 percent monitoring on vessels. Project will facilitate the transition to an industry led effort and support implementation by providing technical assistance to sectors, fishers, and dealers using a maximized retention model to meet their monitoring requirements.
$319,745

Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank
Creating a Centralized Nature-Based Resilience Program for Rhode Island (RI)
Expand Rhode Island’s Shoreline Adaptation Inventory and Design program and incorporate it into the Municipal Resilience Program at Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank. Project will provide expanded nature-based design technical assistance to municipalities through a statewide program providing resilience workshops, project prioritization, and construction funding.
$249,897

Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, NBNERR
Final Designs to Improve Coastal Resiliency at Gull Cove and Quonochontaug Pond Breachway (RI)
Complete final designs and permitting for two shoreline access projects in Portsmouth and Charlestown, Rhode Island. Project will be an implementation ready design to restore coastal habitat and improve resiliency to flooding and erosion.
$200,150

The Nature Conservancy
Develop, Test and Deploy Machine Learning to Reduce Storage for Electronic Monitoring of Fisheries (multiple states)
Develop, widely test and deploy open source computer vision tools which identify and trim video segments to reduce archival video storage costs for fisheries electronic monitoring. Project will employ a two-step process where detection of humans is completed during video review and trimming is done only after video review is completed to reduce risk of eliminating important fishing activity and to facilitate adoption by regulators.
$144,889