“Jamaica Bay is one of the greatest natural treasures any city has within its borders, and our Administration is working hard to make the bay an even greater, stronger, and more resilient natural resource for decades to come. The new consortium we’re announcing today is an all-star team of research institutions and non-profits who will do important work to protect and preserve urban ecosystems from development and from the effects of climate change.”
–NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, August 12, 2013, Riis Landing, Rockaways, Queens
| New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell have selected a consortium of institutions, including Cornell University, for the new “Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay.”
The City of New York has committed $3 million to the center, which will promote “an understanding of resilience in urban ecosystems and their adjacent communities through an intensive research program focused on the restoration of Jamaica Bay.” The Center is part of a historic cooperative agreement between the City and Department of the Interior to jointly manage and enhance more than of 10,000 acres of Federal and city-owned park land around Jamaica Bay. |
Press conference held by NYC Mayor Bloomberg to announce the new “Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay” (Photo: Tom Fox) |
The announcement was made Monday, August 12, 2013, at Riis Landing in the Rockaways, Queens, a community that was devastated from Hurricane Sandy last October. During the press conference, Mayor Bloomberg was joined by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan, who also chairs the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, as well as Peter Madonia, COO of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Led by the City University of New York, this consortium of academic and scientific institutions includes Cornell University/Cooperative Extension, New York Sea Grant, Columbia University’s Earth Institute, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Stony Brook University/School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Wildlife Conservation Society, Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences/Center for Urban Restoration Ecology, and Stevens Institute of Technology. Non-profit organizations and the communities surrounding Jamaica Bay will also play an integral role in contributing to research, engagement and education activities.
Matthew Hare, Department of Natural Resources, serves as Cornell’s point person; Katherine Bunting-Howarth, New York Sea Grant Extension, serves in the same capacity for New York Sea Grant. Other key Cornell faculty are Gretchen Ferenz, Cornell University Cooperative Extension-NYC and Shorna Broussard Allred, Department of Natural Resources.
Additional faculty include Deb Grantham, Cornell Cooperative Extension/Department of Crop and Soil Sciences; Art DeGaetano, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; and Keith Tidball, Department of Natural Resources/NY Extension Disaster Education Network.
Matthew Hare, Associate Professor, Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources, stated, “The Science and Resilience Institute provides an exciting opportunity to coordinate Jamaica Bay social/ecological coupled research across stellar academic institutions in coordination with the areas’ lead management agencies. Jamaica Bay is the epitome of an urban estuary with a long history of environmental degradation while natural capital was borrowed against to further societal goals. Fortunately, decades of water quality improvement since the Clean Water Act give Jamaica Bay a fighting chance to sustain ecosystem processes that confer biophysical resilience, and thereby to sustainably provide the first line of defense against storm floods. The Science and Resilience Institute is a nexus through which research and education will be channeled to turn around the accelerating salt marsh loss, bring back sustainable oyster reefs, and make wastewater discharges ecologically benign. These are grand challenges; the Science and Resilience Institute embodies the Big Apples’ little estuary that could.”
Says Gretchen Ferenz, Senior Extension Associate, Cornell University Cooperative Extension-NYC, “This is a unique opportunity for Cornell to work in collaboration with several top research institutions in the NYC metropolitan area in understanding the science and resilience needs of Jamaica Bay, and its global application to addressing critical issues such as global climate change, and coastal and ecosystem resiliency.“
Shorna B. Allred, Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Human Dimensions Research Unit, Department of Natural Resources at Cornell, remarked that “As a social scientist at a consortium University of the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, I am enthusiastic about the prospects for applied social science research that investigates human values and motivations, stakeholder engagement, and strategies for enhancing community resilience in the coupled social-ecological system of Jamaica Bay. Enhancing community resilience in urban ecosystems like Jamaica Bay is vital as 80% of the U.S. population lives in cities. In addition to the Jamaica Bay community, many cities across the country will benefit from the knowledge produced by the Institute.”
Among the areas of study being discussed as starting points for the research agenda are the ecological impacts of wastewater discharge; changing physical dynamics associated with urbanization and development; marsh loss; and the connectivity between restoration, biota, and people.
The first activity of the Institute was a symposium, “Urban Resilience in an Era of Climate Change: Global Input for Local Solutions,” that took place October 17-18, 2013, at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. NY.
If you would like to learn more about Cornell’s involvement in the research consortium, please contact Matthew Hare, Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University (607-255-5685, mph75@cornell.edu).
Visit the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay project website: www.srijb.org
SELECT MEDIA COVERAGE
Mayor Bloomberg and Secretary Jewell Announce Agreement On New Science and Resilience Institute As Part of Cooperative Management of 10,000 Acres of City, Federal Parks in and Around Jamaica Bay (Aug 12, 2013), nyc.gov
http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/2013b/pr274-13.html
Bloomberg Signs Bill to Aid Disaster Planning (Aug 12, 2013), New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/bloomberg-signs-bills-to-aid-disaster-planning.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0
New Institute in Jamaica Bay will study flooding (Aug 12, 2013), New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/new-tank-jamaica-bay-article-1.1424887
Jamaica Bay Becomes post-Sandy laboratory (Aug 12, 2013), Crain’s New York
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130812/REAL_ESTATE/130819981
Climate change’s effects on Jamaica Bay to be studied (Aug 12, 2013), Metro.us
http://www.metro.us/newyork/news/local/2013/08/12/jamaica-bay-research-institute-will-study-effects-of-climate-change-on-the-ecosystem/