Project

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 […]

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 Template for Mapping Your Stormwater System

A new tool is available to make it easier for communities to create or enhance a map of their stormwater system. The CT GIS Network‘s Standards Committee has collaborated with the CT Department of Transportation (CTDOT)to develop a Stormwater System Mapping Template. The template provides a framework for mapping everything from your catch basins to […]

One CAP Cohort Finishes and Another CAP Cohort Joins the Fold

I continue to be impressed by our Natural Resources Conservation Academy (NRCA) Conservation Ambassador Program (CAP) students. We said goodbye to our 2017-2018 CAP cohort at the 12th Annual Connecticut Conference on Natural Resources, where they graduated as our newest Connecticut Conservation Ambassadors. The students presented their work during a poster session, and described the […]

What do you do after you scoop?

On my drive home last week I saw two of my neighbors walking their dogs. One of the dogs had just done his business and the owner dutifully scooped it up with a doggy doodie bag dangling from the dog’s leash. Excellent, I thought, he knows that dog poop left on the street can be […]

All New CT ECO Website (that’s the one with maps)

The Connecticut Environmental Conditions Online (CT ECO) website has become a central place to view and access Connecticut’s environmental mapping information along with aerial imagery and elevation.  My head has been buried in the sand for the past few months (sorry if I didn’t reply to your email), but I’ve been working on the HUUGGE […]

GIS & Poetry? | Speaking of Connecticut’s Hydrography

If you have not already heard, CT DEEP became Steward of the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and CLEAR has agreed to take the helm to update Connecticut’s hydrography.  The NHD  is simply a spatial dataset that represents the lake and river features across the country.  All in all, we are excited that we will soon […]

The Climate Adaptation Academy is looking for Input

The Climate Adaptation Academy (CAA) is developing a list of challenges that municipalities and residents are facing as a result of climate change, and we need your help. CAA is a partnership between Connecticut Sea Grant and UConn’s Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR) and was developed after talking to a variety of […]

A Map in an App: Drainage Class for 25 States

The Rain Garden App  In case you haven’t heard, a couple of years ago, NEMO (David Dickson and Mike Dietz) created a cool smartphone app that is all about building rain gardens.  It is full of background information including what a rain garden is, how it works, pictures of existing rain gardens and even videos about how […]

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 […]

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, […]

Historical Shoreline Change Project Featured on Local News

Recent storms have focused interest on the dynamics of the shoreline. Receiving attention is the question, “What has it done in the past?” In 2010 the USGS released their report on historical shoreline change along the New England and Mid-Atlantic coasts from Virginia to Maine. Connecticut, buried in the Sound, was passed by. With funding […]

New CLEAR Progress Report Not as Boring as it Sounds!

Every 5.5 years or so (we have only two data points, so this may or may not be a trend) CLEAR issues a Progress Report in an attempt to characterize our rather unconventional blend of research, training, tool development, and outreach. Our second such report is now out, and to be frank—not to mention immodest […]

The Lawn and the Short of It

Thanks to Frederick Law Olmsted, Central Park has great expanses of grass.  But can you imagine a lawn 14 times the size of Manhattan?  That’s basically what we have in the Connecticut and lower New York area.  Humble old grass has become the area’s third most extensive land cover, after forest and developed land (see […]

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, […]