We know from Storms Irene and Sandy that shoreline erosion is a major issue along the Connecticut coast. Our shoreline has a variety of stabilization structures such as concrete seawalls, revetments and bulkheads interspersed with natural shorelines such as sandy or rocky beaches, tidal marshes and flats and exposed bedrock outcrops. The “hard structures” such […]
New Faces @ CLEAR
Two recent additions to the ranks have appeared in the hallowed hallways of CLEAR, swelling our ranks to double digits and causing the mean age of the CLEAR crew to plummet. Andrew Kinlock is a recent graduate of The George Washington University who comes to the Center from a position with the CT DEEP. Andrew […]
Targeting stormwater in Connecticut’s big cities, 1 rain garden at a time
Our older cities in the eastern part of the country have lots of character, however, along with this charm comes the unwanted effects of too much impervious surface draining into a combined sewer system. We have discussed this in a previous blog at CLEAR. Most large cities with combined sewer systems are under order from […]
Mysteries of the New Lidar Data
October 28, 2014 Presented by Cary Chadwick and Emily Wilson, UConn CLEAR Lidar is a detection system that uses light from a laser on an airplane to collect very accurate and dense elevation values with many different applications (and it looks really cool!). Connecticut is (partially) covered by a patchwork of Lidar datasets captured at […]
Rain Garden 2014 Growing Season Time Lapse
The rain garden demonstration site at the Middlesex County Extension Center in Haddam (CLEAR and NEMO’s home-base) was installed in May 2012. It was originally installed to be featured in two new NEMO projects, a smartphone application and a “how to” rain garden website, both now complete. The two projects focus on helping people easily […]
Flooding, storms and mold
Are you concerned about your health after severe wet weather has caused your home and/or things in your home to smell moldy??? – UCONN workshop on Nov 14th by Paula Schenck, MPH, University of Connecticut Health Center Living things need food, water, and a comfortable temperature to grow. Mold, the common name for fungi, can […]
NEARC is Coming to Connecticut
October 5-8 in Mystic! What is NEARC? It stands for the NorthEast Arc Users Group. What is Arc? It is the name, or a shortened name, for the Geographic Information System (GIS) suite of software created by the company ESRI. We like acronyms. What is GIS? Anything with a location, or x,y coordinate, is geographic […]
Loss of Carbon Sequestration from Land Use Change in Connecticut
September 23, 2014 Presented by Linda Powers Tomasso, Project Associate, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard University School of Public Health, and Emily Wilson, UConn CLEAR Greenhouse inventories (GHG) estimate levels of emissions which are scientifically understood as the human-induced basis for climate change. GHG inventories ideally resemble balance sheets indicating both emissions sources […]
NYC Climate March Draws Hundreds of Thousands
Over four hundred thousand people from around the country, young and old, took action yesterday to make a statement about climate change. This event was one of many taking place around the world (http://peoplesclimate.org/), and drew national news attention. My stepfather Trip Barnett attended the march, and he told me that it was a life […]
Summer’s Last Gasp…
Walks through the woods have certainly changed since early summer. Leaves are changing color and even falling. Squirrels are busily making nests and gathering nuts. But before you turn to picking apples and making pumpkin pie, there are a few summer pleasures still to enjoy. The sites and smells are so different now than they […]
Geocaching: A High Tech Game of Hide and Seek
CLEAR’s Geospatial Training Program recently held a workshop for the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History on the art (and fun) of geocaching. Have you heard of geocaching? No? Then you fall solidly into the “muggle” category – aka a human who is not in the know about the greatest real-world treasure hunt that’s happening […]
CLEARscapes – Fall 2014 Edition
In This Issue Climate Adaptation Academy Carbon Accounting Mapping: Lidar Education: Natural Resources Conservation Academy New Faces at CLEAR Green Infrastructure (View Newsletter as pdf)
Maplets: Turn Paper Maps into Interactive Mobile Maps
I am getting ready to head out on my annual backpacking trip to the Adirondacks. I love these trips, but one thing I don’t like is having to constantly pull out, unfold, and then re-fold the huge paper map for the park whenever I begin to worry I might be getting lost (which is way […]
Time to Reassess Connecticut’s Landscape
“Now is the time for Connecticut to move swiftly to save our dwindling open spaces and our great heritage of natural resources for the use and enjoyment of future generations.” Thus began a letter from the Governor of Connecticut ordering the preparation of a plan of action for statewide conservation. The Governor was John Dempsey, […]
Bringing Some Green to Our Big Cities
When people think of Hartford and New Haven, “green” may not be the first thing that jumps to mind. However, recent efforts of the UConn Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO) program are helping to make these cities a little bit greener, both figuratively and literally. This past June, NEMO partnered with Neighborhood Housing Services […]
Stormwise: Increasing the Storm Resilience of Trees
July 23, 2014 Presented by Mark Rudnicki, UConn Associate Professor, Forest Ecology, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Connecticut is a state with magnificent and plentiful forest cover, but we have a continuing problem with trees causing power outages. The STORMWISE initiative, developed at the University of Connecticut, seeks to integrate outreach, education, research […]
It is sunny!
And there are 24 solar panels on my house soaking it all up! Yesterday the panels collected 37 kWh and the day before was 37.9 kWh. To give you some perspective, the average household in Connecticut uses 731 kWh a month or about 24.4 kWh a day. Of course this varies by season and so does […]
Climate Change—Public vs. Private Goods
– Article by Linda Powers Tomasso, Project Associate, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard University School of Public Health Climate change is in the news almost daily, and while many of us didn’t grow up with the phrase, our attentiveness to the causes of a warming planet gives us no cause for comfort. Our own […]
Green Infrastructure on the UConn Campus
May 13, 2014 Presented by Michael Dietz & Chet Arnold, UConn CLEAR The main campus of the University of Connecticut is rapidly becoming a showcase for the innovative stormwater practices known as green infrastructure (GI), or low impact development (LID). Green roofs, rain gardens, pervious parking lots and walkways, bioretention cells, and other GI features […]
The Power of Water
I have been known to occasionally get a bit sappy about water…and with good reason. I feel that I owe my passion for the environment, and for water specifically, to experiences and people that were part of my life as a young boy. My father, uncles and grandfather all took the time to take me […]