Ecosystem Targets and Supporting Indicators

Watershed Population

This indicator uses US Census data to track the population living within the Long Island Sound watershed.

View Implementation Actions for Watershed Population

Total
By State

Long Island Sound Watershed Population by State
	CT	NY	MA	NH	VT	RI
1800	251,030	41,200	136,920	49,550	79,600	9,170
1850	370,800	187,200	232,870	75,920	123,100	10,770
1900	908,400	772,400	544,800	87,060	110,600	18,890
1950	2,007,300	2,833,180	914,410	110,800	117,000	39,190
1970	3,032,220	3,603,610	1,088,220	126,060	123,040	64,160
1980	3,107,560	3,240,140	1,092,670	145,890	142,800	70,240
2000	3,405,570	3,631,250	1,170,210	166,800	165,400	87,060
2010	3,574,097	3,723,619	1,203,754	176,664	167,021	88,939
2020	3,605,944	3,709,518	1,059,497	225,284	202,522	137,544

Total Long Island Sound Watershed Population
1800	567,470
1850	1,000,660
1900	2,442,150
1950	6,021,880
1970	8,037,310
1980	7,799,300
2000	8,626,290
2010	8,934,094
2020	8,940,309

WHAT IS A WATERSHED?

The watershed is all of the land that drains into Long Island Sound itself or bodies of water that connect to the Sound. The watershed of Long Island Sound includes land from six states and extends north up to the border with Canada. The total area of the LIS watershed in Connecticut is 3,296,015 acres, which includes nearly the entire state. The total area of the LIS watershed in New York is 306,052 acres and is situated primarily along the coast in Long Island, Queens, the Bronx, and Westchester.

WHAT DOES THIS INDICATE?

This indicator provides population information for the total watershed plus state-level data for the parts of each state within the watershed.

STATUS

About 8.93 million people live in the watershed, according to the 2010 US Census, an increase of 3.5 percent from 2000. The increase is slightly higher than the 3.2 percent growth for the entire Northeast. From 2000 to 2010, regional growth was much faster for the South and West (14.3 and 13.8 percent, respectively) than for the Midwest (3.9 percent) and Northeast (3.2 percent). About half of the watershed population lives near the coast in New York and Connecticut, according to an analysis done for a public perception survey of Long Island Sound in 2006.

DATA NOTES

Compiled by M.A. Parker, CT DEEP, from population data estimates maintained by the US Census Bureau, the University of Virginia Library with the cooperation and consent of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, and New York census 2000 town/city data from the Empire State Development – DataCenter.