Water and Related Land Resources of the Berkshire Region, Massachusetts

Excerpts from the report: The Berkshire Region is located entirely within Berkshire County, the western most county in Massachusetts. The county extends the entire north-south length of the state, from Vermont to Connecticut. On the west, the county is bounded by the New York-Massachusetts border and on the east by the Connecticut River Valley (Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden Counties). The Berkshire Region is a trough-like area lying between the Taconic Mountain Range on the west (New York border) and the Berkshire Hills on the east (the eastern most towns in the county, with the exception of Washington, are not within the region). The region is further divided into two study areas, the Hudson and the Housatonic. The predominant land use in the Berkshire Region is forestland which covers nearly 70 percent (301,505 acres) of the region. Agricultural land comprises nearly 14 percent (34,374 acres of cropland and 26,391 acres of pastureland) of the region. There are nearly 30,000 acres of urban (residential, commercial-industrial and institutional) land in the Berkshire Region. Slightly more than four percent of the region is composed of wetlands (11,569 acres) and water surfaces (7,523 acres). Objectives of this report are to identify problems, needs and alternative solutions in the following resource areas: land use, flooding, erosion and sediment, recreation, fish and wildlife, wetlands, water supply and water quality.