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'') ...
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 administrativ ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
.
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 strait 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 Plum Is ...
, and is largely bordered by the Misquamicut Club golf course. Nests of the
piping plover, which has been federally designated as a
threatened species
Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of '' critical depen ...
, 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 small values of miscellaneous dimensionless quantities, e.g. mole fraction or mass fraction. Since these fractions are quantity-per-quantity measures, they ...
, 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
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