CAFE Helps ‘The Greenfield Recorder’ Explain Conway, MA’s Interest in ‘Fluvial Geomorphology’
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Recent flood-prevention efforts in the city of Conway, MA highlight the importance of science-driven, community-based strategies to protect people, infrastructure, and natural resources from increasingly severe flooding.
The Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment (CAFE), housed within the College of Natural Sciences, supports this work through research and Extension outreach focused on climate adaptation, watershed health, and flood resilience. For this reason, Aalianna Marietta—the South County reporter for The Greenfield Recorder and a graduate of UMass Amherst—cited CAFE while covering Conway’s flood mitigation progress, in an effort to explain "fluvial geomorphology" and the science behind the town’s plans to change the South River watershed in a way that could reduce flooding in the town center.
“According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, ‘Fluvial geomorphology is the study of the interactions between the physical shapes of rivers, their water and sediment transport processes, and the landforms they create’ that focuses on the movement and evolution of rivers.”
— The Greenfield Recorder
Through initiatives such as RiverSmart Communities, CAFE helps communities understand river processes and pursue ecologically informed approaches that reduce flood risks while restoring natural river functions, and helps connect university expertise with local planning to build more resilient communities across Massachusetts.
Read The Greenfield Recorder to learn more.