Thursday, March 5, 2026 - 1 PM
Presenters: Emily Wilson and Qian “Rachel” Lei-Parent, UConn CLEAR
UConn CLEAR will soon release a land cover tool that includes a new map viewer and new data dashboards for exploring land cover and land cover change in Connecticut and the entire Long Island Sound Watershed (5 states!). The tool uses a recently released land cover series called Annual NLCD (National Land Cover Database) which is created by USGS and a consortium of federal agencies. The tool allows for exploration of both watershed and town land cover and change starting in 1985 and analyzed every 5 years until 2023 and also includes analyses in the 300ft riparian zone (land near water ways). The webinar is part of a two-part series that will introduce the new datasets and demonstrate how to use the tools. We anticipate public release in early 2026 when the tools can be found on the CT ECO land cover page.
Thursday, February 26, 2026 - 1 PM
Presenters: Qian “Rachel” Lei-Parent and David Dickson, UConn CLEAR
Nitrogen (N) from residential lawn fertilizer is one of the most challenging and persistent problems impacting the health of Long Island Sound (LIS). An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Clark University, UConn, the University of Maryland, and the University of Miami collaborated on an effort to develop a LIS Lawn Fertilizer Outreach Optimization Tool. Combining social science and two tools that model nitrogen interactions with the landscape, the resulting data and tool can help inform lawn fertilizer education and outreach campaigns target areas that are likely to have a significant impact on water quality.
This webinar will walk through the methodology behind the tool and demonstrate how to use it to inform outreach efforts.
Thursday, January 29, 2026
Speakers: Dr. Thomas Meyer, NGS CT State Geodetic Co-Coordinator, Professor of Geodesy, UConn
The US National Geodetic Survey (NGS) will re-design the national State Plane Coordinate System with the release of our new national reference frame, the North American Terrestrial Reference Frame 2022 (NATRF 2022). This webinarwill show the differences of the new system and the one we use today, SPCS83, show some example coordinates in the new system, and offer some thoughts about what to expect from the changes.
Thursday, January 15, 2026
Speakers: Chris Renshaw, UConn Fire Chief & Emily Wilson, UConn CLEAR
Bringing together extensive knowledge about wildfire, firefighting, and natural resources in Connecticut, UConn Fire Chief Chris Renshaw discovered overlapping conditions that show how Connecticut could suffer a similar fate to Maui, Hawaii, where a surprise and devastating wildfire caused destruction and loss of life. A new story map and map viewer explain the overlapping conditions of fire ecology, forest health, changing weather, and housing density, and compare them to recent brush fires across the state. During the webinar, Chris and Emily will explain the situation through the story map and discuss what Connecticut fire departments and residents can do. A must attend for land managers, elected officials, and fire service personnel. Find the Wildfire in Connecticut Story Map and the CT Wildland-Urban Interface/Intermix Viewer on the CT Wildland Fire section of CT ECO: https://maps.cteco.uconn.edu/projects/fire/.