April 20, 2020 Presented By Lisa Wahle, Wildlife Management Institute, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Young forest and shrubland, and the wildlife species that depend on these areas have been in decline for many years due to anthropogenic development on natural lands and the normal maturation of forests. The designation of the New England […]
Communicating Trail Data through the Connecticut Trail Census
April 15, 2020 Presented By Laura Brown, Department of Extension, UConn The Connecticut Trail Census is an innovative statewide volunteer-based data collection and education program that encourages data informed decision-making and promotes active citizen participation in multi-use trail monitoring and advocacy. The Trail Census includes trail use counts recorded by infrared pedestrian counters, trail user […]
Connecticut’s Blue Heritage Trail
April 13, 2020 Presented By Syma Ebbin, Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics and Connecticut Sea Grant, UConn and Colleen Franks, Dept. of Marine Sciences, UConn The Blue Heritage Trail (BHT) project, supported by the University of Connecticut Office of Public Engagement, National Park Service and Connecticut Sea Grant seeks to raise public awareness of the […]
The Climate Change Denier Awards
With the spotlight on the COVID-19 virus and the social and economic devastation it is causing, it’s easy to overlook the many other challenges that are still ahead. One such challenge is our response to climate change. In the interest of diverting attention from the present troubles, the Climate Deniers Awards have been created. While […]
Statewide Lidar Elevation Points in Interactive, Color 3D!!
April 8, 2020 Presented By Emily Wilson, CLEAR Geospatial Extension Educator Lidar is a remote sensing technique to map elevation using a laser sensor on an airplane. The result is millions of points (or more) which are often used as input to other datasets such as digital elevation models (DEMs) which show the surface of […]
From Maps to Apps: Accessible Tech for field scientists and citizen scientists alike
April 6, 2020 Presented By Cary Chadwick, CLEAR Geospatial Extension Educator Advancements in data collection technology has made it easy to leverage sensors in smartphones and tablets including cameras, GPS, accelerometers, gyroscopes and more. This opens doors for casual mappers and citizen scientists to collect useful data with just the tool in their pocket. This […]
Moving with the Marshes
April 1, 2020 Presented By Juliana Barrett, Coastal Resources Extension Educator, CT Sea Grant Avalonia Land Conservancy (ALC) received a land parcel donation to add to their waterfront Dodge Paddock Beal Preserve in Stonington Borough, CT in 2018. The parcel included a large, cultivated garden bordering a marsh. With funding from the Long Island Sound […]
Collaboratives & Utilities: New Options for Municipal Stormwater Management
March 30, 2020 Presented By Amanda Ryan, CLEAR MS4 Extension Options for funding stormwater management efforts in Connecticut are expanding. While our region has been slow to adopt stormwater utilities for raising funds for stormwater management efforts, that may be beginning to change with the state’s first-ever stormwater utility approved in the City of New […]
Teen-Adult Teams Apply Technology Tools Toward Local Conservation
UConn’s Conservation Training Partnerships (CTP) program just graduated its third year of Conservation Ambassadors, though admittedly, not exactly the way we had originally planned. CTP begins with a two-day workshop where teen & adult teams learn how to apply innovative, user-friendly mapping and web technology to address local conservation issues through hands-on fieldwork. After the […]
Emergency Changes to the Land Use Process in the COVID-19 Era
March 26, 2020 Presented By Sara C. Bronin, Thomas F. Gallivan Chair of Real Property Law, UConn Law School and Chair, Hartford Planning and Zoning Commission In the COVID-19 era, the law must balance the need to limit face-to-face interaction, the public interest in efficient municipal function, and the difficulties municipalities face in an era […]
UConn Environment Corps: Harnessing Student Power to Help Towns
March 25, 2020 Presented By Chet Arnold, CLEAR Director A UConn faculty partnership that reaches across departmental and college lines is engaged in an effort that seeks to enhance, expand and institutionalize a new model for community engagement at the University. The “Environment Corps” combines the familiar elements of classroom instruction, service learning and Extension […]
CLEAR Bunch #SocialDistancing
Today we held our regular Tuesday CLEAR staff meeting. For the first time in a while the meeting wasn’t cancelled due to looming deadlines, stress, panic, conflicting meetings or anything else. Even in these social distancing times, everyone “made” it despite being all over the state, juggling households with small children, “distance learning” efforts, dogs […]
CT Trail Census: New Data Viz
The Connecticut Trail Census just launched a new data visualization, analyzing use on many of the state’s most popular multi-use trails. In 2019, the most heavily used trails were the Naugatuck River Greenway in Derby, Riverfront Recapture Trail in Hartford, and the Hop River Trail in Vernon. Hop River Trail data also indicated that a […]
NEW CT 3D Lidar Viewer on CT ECO
The new Connecticut 3D Lidar Viewer marks the first time that 3D elevation points from remotely-sensed Lidar are available in an interactive format over the web. Lidar is a remote sensing technique to map elevation using a laser sensor on an airplane. The result is millions and millions of points that each have a measured […]
Environmental Conservation on Display
What do salamanders, bats, compost and microplastics have in common? They’re some of the many conservation topics that teens and adults enrolled in the UConn Natural Resources Conservation Academy (http://nrca.uconn.edu/) have investigated this past year. Participants in the NRCA Conservation Ambassador Program and Conservation Training Partnerships will share their community project posters, story maps and […]
New option for taking nitrogen samples
There wasn’t a cheap and simple way to take field measurements of Total Nitrogen (TN). Samples had to be sent to a lab – until now! To help reduce water quality testing costs, CT DEEP agreed to allow MS4 communities to use less expensive field tests for nitrate and ammonia to estimate Total Nitrogen. If […]
Journey of A Climate Corps Student
By Sarah Schechter Major Choices I entered UConn as a Natural Resources Major, knowing I wanted to focus on the environment, but unsure of the exact path I wanted to follow. When choosing classes during my orientation session in Summer 2017, it was recommended that I take ANTH 1010: Global Climate Change and Human Societies, […]
CLEARscapes – Winter 2020 Edition
In this Issue The Environment Corps CLEAR Adds New Affiliated Faculty Connecticut’s Changing Landscape Two New CT ECO Map Viewers New Tools and Support for MS4 Program Updates (View Newsletter as pdf)
CLEAR In the Press – 2019
Hartford Courant – 11/03/19 From ‘rain bombs’ to ‘sunny-day flooding,’ climate change has become local The Chronicle – 08/06/19 UConn Gets Grant for Environmental Program
Is your water safe to drink?
If you are like most people, as long as water comes out of the tap, you don’t give it much thought. If your water is supplied by a water company, stringent testing is required by law, and you will periodically receive results of the testing. If you are one of the 40% of Connecticut residents […]