A little over a hundred years ago, a sandbar that was walkable at low tide joined Gooseberry Island to the Westport mainland. In 1922, a simple causeway was built that was destroyed in the Hurricane of 1938. In 1943, the US Army established a WWII installation on the island and built a fortified causeway of boulders and concrete that remains to this day. Now referred to as Gooseberry Neck, the combined causeway and island extend approximately one mile into Buzzards Bay.

The timing of the Gooseberry Causeway construction coincides with the beginning of dramatic changes to this stretch of coastline, leading government officials, coastal scientists and residents to question whether this manmade structure may be contributing to some or all of these changes.

The Buzzards Bay Coalition, along with partners from Boston University, Woods Hole Group, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, set out to study a series of scientific questions that focused on the Gooseberry Causeway and its effects on the beaches and water quality of Buzzards Bay between the Westport and Slocums Rivers.

Part one of the Gooseberry Causeway Impact Study was released in May 2025. Part Two: Dartmouth Estuaries will be released later this year.

Final Report

Hughes, Z., FitzGerald, D., Fagherazzi, S., Asik, T., Xie, D., Tas, S., Hein, C., Dongen, A., Shultz, M. (2025) Lower Buzzards Bay Sedimentation & Gooseberry Causeway Impact Study; Westport River Inlet and East Beach; Results Report 1. 96 pp.

An overview of the Report can be found here.

Associated Literature

Xie, Hughes, FitzGerald, Tas, Asik, Fagherazzi (2024) Longshore Sediment Transport Across a Tombolo Determined by Two Adjacent Circulation Cells, JGR Earth Surface, American Geophysical Union.

Xie, Hughes, FitzGeraqld, Tas, Xaman Asik, Fagherazzi (2024) Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Hydrodynamics Around a Headland and Potential Headland Sediment Bypassing,  Geophysical Research Letters, American Geophysical Union.

Geiss, FitzGerald, Huges, Staro, Geomorphological Development of Western Buzzard’s Bay Coast through Onshore Reworking of Glaciofluvial Deposits, Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University.

Van Dongen, Hein, FitzGerald, Hughes, Saylor (2024) Spatial Variability in Coastal Saltmarsh Resilience to Sea-Level Rise Near Westport and Slocum Rivers, Massachusetts, Department of Biology, William & Mary; Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University.