An inventory of published studies that address freshwater ecology within the New England Coastal Basins was created through computerized bibliographic literature searches and consultation with environmental agencies. Assembled papers were classified to associate their contents with one or more states, ecoregions, river basins, and ecological topics. Full references and their classifications were entered into a bibliographic software program and then exported to a data-base application to generate a checklist summary of study contents. This report presents a listing and classification of 154 selected studies, published between 1937 and 1997, that provide background knowledge and serve as general aquatic-ecology references for the New England Coastal Basins study area.