September 21, 2015 Presented by Alyssa Norwood, Connecticut’s Legislative Commission on Aging This webinar was recorded on September 21, 2015. Alyssa Norwood from Connecticut’s Legislative Commission on Aging provides statistics on the state’s ageing populations and how to address it from a land use planning perspective. Moderated by UConn CLEAR’s Bruce Hyde. View Video
Monarchs, Pollinators and You!
Let’s do a quick word association: If I say “milkweed” what do you think? For me, the association is always monarch butterflies. I remember walking through fields with my dog looking for monarch caterpillars on the milkweeds, and the thrill of finding the beautiful, incredibly delicate, green chrysalis. Years later, on a fall day, I […]
Part 2: Creating the Story Map of Connecticut’s Changing Landscape
Visit Part 1: The Connecticut’s Changing Landscape Story Why did we make a story map? Because a story map is visually appealing and catchy, is easy to understand AND information rich, guides the reader while allowing for exploration and is an interesting, multimedia experience. The goal of this blog (Part 2) is to share some of the “how” when creating […]
Part 1: The Story of Connecticut’s Changing Landscape
Connecticut’s Changing Landscape CLEAR has been creating and sharing land cover for decades. Our websites and methods for slicing and dicing and displaying the data have evolved along with technology. One thing has remained constant through the versions – the maps (now up to six dates covering 25 years) are a rich set of information with […]
CLEARscapes – Fall 2015 Edition
In This Issue CT’s Changing Landscape LID in Connecticut Land & Climate Program Updates Water Program Updates Geospatial Training & Technology Updates Land Use Academy Award (View Newsletter as pdf)
More Than Just a Picture? The Basics of Remotely Sensed Imagery
July 28, 2015 Presented by Dan Civco, Professor, Department of NRE, UConn Director, Center for Land Use Education And Research (CLEAR) and James Hurd, Research Associate, Department of NRE, UConn Director, Laboratory for Earth Resources Information Systems (LERIS) We have all seen remotely sensed imagery, and many of us use imagery as a background layer […]
The Big Picture of Climate Adaptation in Connecticut
June 16, 2015 Presented by Mark Boyer, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, Political Science, UConn and Melanie Meinzer, Graduate Student, UConn When confronted with the demands of global climate change, why do some towns move the climate adaptation agenda forward in their communities while others seemingly get little accomplished? To answer this question, we look at […]
A House with One Room
A white-eyed vireo perches high on a tree branch scanning the understory below. She’s searching for the perfect place to raise her young. The nesting site must match the shopping list inside her head: lush, impenetrable thickets of young trees and gnarly shrubs. She needs young trees at least three feet high, filled with nooks […]
Want to Make a Real Difference in Nepal? Be a Digital Volunteer!
By now, you’ve heard about the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the country of Nepal on April 25. As of today, it has tragically claimed over 5,000 lives. Shortly after the quake, chaos and confusion engulfed the capitol city of Kathmandu. Landmark building and temples, some in world heritage sites have been destroyed and city […]
Using the Aquaculture Mapping Atlas for Fun and Profit
April 21, 2015 Presented by Cary Chadwick, UConn CLEAR and Tessa Getchis, UConn Aquaculture, Shellfish Management Shellfish aquaculture is a large and growing part of Connecticut’s agriculture sector but site selection is a major challenge. Farmers cultivate oysters, clams and scallops in designated areas of Long Island Sound. Those sites are considered public property and […]
Land Use Academy wins award from CT Planners
CLEAR’s Land Use Academy has won the 2014 Education Award from the Connecticut Chapter of the American Planning Association. The Academy, created in 2007, provides basic training for municipal land use commissioners on roles and responsibilities, legal requirements and site plan reading, as well as advanced training on emerging topics. As we all know, land […]
Natural Resources Conservation Academy (NRCA)
March 17, 2015 Presented by John Volin & Laura Cisneros, UConn Department of Natural Resources and Environment, College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources UConn’s Natural Resources Conservation Academy (NRCA) is a new transformative program that engages high school students in land use and natural resource conservation in an exciting and meaningful way for the […]
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 […]
Update on the Emerald Ash Borer in Connecticut
February 10, 2015 Presented by Nancy Marek, UConn Extension Forestry and Chris Donnelly, CT DEEP Urban Forestry Coordinator The emerald ash borer is a small, shimmering green, non-native insect that kills ash trees. Learn about the biology of the pest, how to identify an ash tree, what efforts are currently being used to control and […]
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 […]
Living Shorelines and the Connecticut Coast
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]