... River Basin (fig. 1) encompasses an area of 177 mi2 within the Merrimack River Basin in eastern Massachusetts. The study area includes all or part of 20 towns. The basin is elongate in the ... others, 1963; Randall and others, 1988; Melvin and others, 1992; Tiedeman and others, 1997; Lyford and others, 2003; Kontis and others, in press), with the thin till at the upper end of the reported ... for the protection of aquatic habitat were recently assessed by Parker and others (2004) at six sites in the basin. A water-use investigation of the Assabet, Concord, and Sudbury River Basins...