Programs

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 […]

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 […]

A Congressman Supports Infiltration: of Stormwater, that is…

On Tuesday April 14th, Representative Joe Courtney of Connecticut’s Second District stopped by UConn for a brief tour of low impact development (LID), or green infrastructure (GI), stormwater practices on campus.   The Congressman and his aide Cutter Oliver were doing some fact finding related to a bill introduced to the House last year, the […]

Connecticut Tree Wardens’ Association

– Article by Bob Ricard Approximately 85 tree wardens, deputy tree wardens, urban forestry volunteers, and others gathered in Glastonbury, March 20th, for the Tree Wardens’ Association of Connecticut, Inc., 22nd Annual Dinner Meeting.  The primary purpose of the meeting was to conduct the business of the state-wide organization, founded in 1992 by UConn Extension […]

A Climate Adaptation Academy for Connecticut

Modeled after CLEAR’s highly successful Land Use Academy, we are embarking on a new forum for land use officials and other interested professionals, a Climate Adaptation Academy (CAA). The CAA, sponsored by Connecticut Sea Grant and CLEAR, with funding from NOAA/National Sea Grant is envisioned to be an exchange of information, issues, experiences and solutions. […]

Climate Change: Beyond Dispute or an Attempt to Redistribute Wealth?

On Friday Governor Dannel Malloy and UConn President Susan Herbst, along with a host of federal and state officials, announced the creation of the Institute for Community Resiliency and Climate Adaptation. Located at UConn’s Avery Point Campus, the Institute is a collaboration between UConn and CTDEEP and its mission, in broad terms, is to coordinate […]

CT ECO: Shedding Some Light on Connecticut’s Lidar

Light Detection and Ranging – sounds fancy and highly technical, right? That’s because it is! In a nutshell, Lidar data shows the elevation of the earth’s surface.   But the cool parts are what Lidar looks like, shows, and how people are using it.  Why am I blogging about Lidar now? Two reasons – the […]

Connecting Sustainable Woodland Management and High School Technical Arts Programs: An Initiative Creating Educational Opportunities for Local Wood Utilization

-Article written by Tom Worthley, UConn Extension Forestry- During a conversation in 2010 between myself and a teacher from the industrial arts department at Haddam-Killingworth High School, the suggestion was made that the School District could continually grow, harvest and process a portion of the annual lumber needs for the shop class from part of […]

Water Please, Hold the Pharmaceuticals

The medicines that we all take are prescribed with the goal of improving our health in some way. Unfortunately, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals that we use are finding their way into our nation’s waterways, impacting aquatic life, and potentially threatening our health. There are two ways medications are finding their way into our water bodies, […]

CLEAR’s Geospatial Training Program Goes Global

When an email from Dr. Yahaya Umar at the Nigerian Defence Academy came across my desk last July indicating interest in CLEAR’s hands-on workshop on Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, I was initially a bit skeptical. Why would anyone from the other side of the world want to travel all the way to UConn to […]

LID vs Green Infrastructure

If you deal with stormwater issues or land use planning, chances are you have heard the phrase “green infrastructure” mentioned a lot recently. It is rapidly replacing “Low Impact Development” (LID) as the phrase du jour in the stormwater biz. But before we all go willingly adopting this into our lexicon, we must first ask […]

Green Roofs Blossom in America’s Cities

City parks and stock exchanges are not the only place to find large expanses of green these days.  Green roofs are starting to become part of the cityscape in many of the larger cities on both the East and West coasts.  The reason?  Green roofs provide a host of environmental benefits:  they increase energy efficiency, […]

Teens Master the Art (and fun!) of Mapping at UConn’s NRC Academy

The Natural Resource Conservation Academy (NRCA) is an innovative program in conservation and land use planning for a select group of Connecticut high school students. The Academy starts with a week-long field course at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Throughout the week, students interact with UConn faculty and learn about mapping and geospatial information, […]