Ocean State, River Stories

“Spring becomes stream becomes river, and all three seek the sea.”

— Robert Macfarlane, Is a River Alive?

Although branded as the Ocean State, Rhode Island is also home to almost 1,400 miles of rivers that flow to Narragansett Bay and Long Island Sound. This semester, 20 undergraduate students in a Science Journalism course at Brown University waded beyond College Hill to investigate their watershed, from source to sea. They reported deeply on the rivers that thread through Providence, from the Woonasquatucket and Seekonk to the Blackstone and Moshassuck. 

Their stories examine the science, history, and human experiences connected to these rivers — from water quality and wildlife restoration to flooding, pollution, social justice, and the communities working to protect them. The 20 stories span the impact of Providence’s industrial river legacy on birds and quahogs and how hardening of the rivers has worsened present-day flooding to monitoring lead in the watershed and the relationship between refugees and rivers in Rhode Island. 

Collectively, these stories contribute to a broader understanding of the ecological and societal significance of Rhode Island’s rivers and how they’re being shaped by climate change and local communities — each offering its own view of the state’s waterways, each its own tributary of the story of Rhode Island’s rivers.