Programs

Goodbye GPS Unit, Hello Smart Phone

Smartphones are the swiss army knife of the digital world. They have replaced countless single-function gadgets from calculators to cameras to pagers to, um, phones! But for mapping geeks, one of the gadgets they have not quite been able to shake is the handheld GPS unit, at least until now. The Geospatial Training Program at […]

A Watershed Moment

Many of us have heard about watershed protection efforts. Perhaps you live in a drinking water supply watershed. Poor Willy Wonka was wrongly accused of poisoning the watershed of his brown river (it turned out to be chocolate).  But what is a watershed, really? In physical terms, a watershed is an area of land that […]

When it comes to Climate Change— Money Talks

It is generally accepted by climate scientists that New England will experience a trend of increasing intensity and frequency of storms resulting in an increase in flooding and coastal erosion. Recent storms have raised our collective awareness of the damage, both fiscal and physical, that these storms can cause. Consider that Sandy wasn’t even a […]

Of Witch Hazel and Wood Frogs

Here at CLEAR I don’t think anyone would claim to be a naturalist, at least of any skill or repute.  But that doesn’t prevent our collective and individual enjoyment of the natural world, including the signal events that mark the turning of the seasons. For me (forgive me, crocus fans), there are really three signature […]

The Salt of the Earth

Although signs of spring are appearing around us (crocuses are up at my house!), the remnants of winter linger. Piles of dirty snow snow still litter the landscape, refusing to yield to the lengthening days. Very soon our thoughts and activities will turn to all things spring; snowplows and road salt will be distant memories. […]

This is Not Your Dog’s Clicker Training

When you say the word “clicker” the first thing many people think of is training a dog. But clickers can also refer to the devices used to engage an audience in group decision-making. When a contestant in a game show decides to “ask the audience,” an audience response system (aka clicker) is used. Recently, clickers […]

Build a Rain Garden this Spring with NEMO’s New App & Website

February 20, 2013 Presented by David Dickson & Michael Dietz, UConn CLEAR Rain gardens are depressions in the ground that collect and soak up stormwater runoff from roads, roofs, driveways, and other hard surfaces. They are relatively simple to install, are beautiful additions to the landscape, and help prevent water pollution. And now NEMO has […]

Dietz Gets Sappy About Water

It’s funny sometimes how seemingly unrelated events help to congeal an idea in your head (or in my case remind you of an idea that you had thought about before, and then forgotten…I am 40 after all!). Earlier this week I finally checked out the NPR story  that Don Waye from EPA had sent, that […]

We Got Your LID Examples Right Here!

Interested in Low Impact Development (LID), but want a better sense of what it looks like? Well, have we got the tool for you – the National NEMO Network’s National LID Atlas contains nearly 850 examples from 28 states! For the uninitiated, low impact development (LID) practices include rain gardens, pervious pavement, green roofs, rain barrels, […]

What the Heck is the Land Use Academy?

As a local land use commissioner you are faced with making decisions about how your community will grow, reviewing and approving applications for a variety of projects and balancing growth with natural resource protection. Sometimes court decisions change the rules, you receive conflicting advice, the information you have to work with is incomplete or you […]

NEW! Land Cover for the Long Island Sound Watershed

You may have heard of the Connecticut’s Changing Landscape project and website that provides basic land cover information through five directly comparable land cover datasets, from 1985, 1990, 1995, 2002 and 2006, allowing us to look at, and quantify, landscape change in Connecticut.  Now, thanks to the support of the Long Island Sound Study, we […]

NEMO Monitoring Project Looks at Nitrogen Processing by Bioretention

Last week CLEAR’s NEMO Program broke ground on a new monitoring project focused on the Low Impact Development (LID) practice of bioretention.  Bioretention is the practice of reducing the quantity, and increasing the quality, of runoff by directing it to a depression filled with plants.  This is the same concept as the more widely recognized rain garden, […]

CLEAR/DEEP Team Wins Award for "CT ECO" Mapping Website

The CLEAR and CT DEEP team responsible for the development and operation of the Connecticut Conditions Online, or CT ECO, website has won the 2012 Public Service Award from the Connecticut Chapter of the American Planning Association. CT ECO is a highly advanced internet mapping site that provides access to the state’s natural resource data. […]

CLEAR’s Newest Geospatial Technology Course Focuses on Land Trusts

CLEAR’s Geospatial Training Program (GTP) has partnered with the Connecticut Land Conservation Council to develop a new course for land trust staff and volunteers. The first workshop was held on a sunny Friday in September. The one-day course is designed to teach participants how to use a handheld GPS receiver to map property boundaries and […]