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Seagrass beds are critical wetlands components of shallow marine ecosystems along the Massachusetts coastline. Seagrass beds provide food and cover for a great variety of commercially and recreationally important fauna and their prey. The leaf canopy of the seagrass bed calms the water, filters suspended matter and together with extensive roots and rhizomes, stabilizes sediment. Seagrasses are often referred to as "Submerged Aquatic Vegetation" or SAV. This distinguishes them from algae, which are not classified as plants by biologists (rather they are often placed in the kingdom protista), and distinguishes them from the "emergent" saltwater plants found in salt marshes.

In Massachusetts, the dominant SAV is Zostera marina or eelgrass. The other species found in the embayments of the Massachusetts coast is Ruppia maritima, commonly called “widgeon grass,” which is present in areas of less salinity along Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay. Widgeon grass, found in the upper reaches of embayments, has a thread-like morphology that makes it difficult to identify using remotely sensed data. It can only be identified and located by on-site survey.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) began a program to map the state's SAV resources in the early 1990s and since 1995 the MassDEP Eelgrass Mapping Project has produced multiple surveys of SAV along the Massachusetts coastline, as listed here:

PhaseProject YearsProject Area11995Entire MA Coast22001Coast-wide MA Coast except Elizabeth Islands (Gosnold) and Mount Hope Bay32006/07Selected embayments, coast-wide including Elizabeth Islands42010-20132010 - South Shore of Cape Cod: Woods Hole to Chatham, selected embayments, Pleasant Bay;2012 - North Shore, Boston Harbor, South Shore to Provincetown;2013 - Buzzards Bay, Elizabeth Islands, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket52015-20172015 - South Shore of Cape Cod, Pleasant Bay, Nantucket;2016 - North Shore, Boston Harbor, South Shore to Canal;2017 - Buzzards Bay, North Shore of Cape Cod, Elizabeth Islands and Martha's Vineyard62019-20232019 - South Shore of Cape Cod, Pleasant Bay, North Shore of Nantucket2020 - Martha’s Vineyard, Buzzards Bay and Elizabeth Islands 2021 - Cape Cod Bay (Provincetown through Duxbury) 2022 - South Shore, Boston Harbor, North Shore (Marshfield through Rockport)2023 - Cape Ann to the New Hampshire border (Essex through Newburyport)

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