Project Team: Timon McPhearson, Ahmed Mustafa, Luis Ortiz, Katinka Wijsman, Bart Orr, Veronica Olivotto, Daniel Sauter, Claudia Tomateo, Chris Kennedy, Yaella Depietri, Elizabeth Cook, Rocio Carrero

USL is co-leading the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN), a five-year project funded through a $12 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The highly interdisciplinary UREx team includes scientists, students, planners, NGOs, industry, and other stakeholders in cities throughout the Americas. We are developing an innovative set of methods to assess how infrastructure can be more resilient, provide ecosystem services, and incorporate new technologies that strengthen socio-environmental wellbeing.

As part of the UREx project, USL is producing 3D visualizations that examine the equity implications of urban vulnerability. These interactive maps of nine cities integrate social, ecological, and technological data from a variety of sources. The map for New York City has played an important role in our collaboration with the Mayor's Office of Recovery & Resiliency and the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay to reduce the city’s vulnerability to flooding.

project theme

Urban Climate Resilience

Project Team: Timon McPhearson, Bianca Lopez, Elizabeth Cook

The MillionTreesNYC Afforestation Study is a multiyear ecological research project focused on succession, soil-plant interactions, and native-invasive species dynamics in 10 parks across New York City. The purpose is to assess the short- and long-term impacts of the MillionTreesNYC tree-planting strategy on the structure and functions of new forest ecosystems.

Led by USL in collaboration with Columbia University and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, the study involves collecting data on soils, plants, and microbes at 38 permanent afforestation plots since 2008. It also includes evaluating forest-management practices for realizing the long-term goals of MillionTreesNYC.

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project theme

Urban Ecology · Nature Based Solutions

Project Team: Timon McPhearson, Emily Maxwell, Michael Treglia, Cecilia de Corral

We are collaborating with The Nature Conservancy and Columbia University to produce the most comprehensive assessment of New York City’s green roofs to date. Projects such as Aucher Serr’s Envisioning a New Urban Jungle explore the future of New York’s green roofs through data analysis and visualization.

Our research on green roofs is closely linked with teaching and outreach. The New School’s Green Roof Ecology course — a collaboration with local partners at Brooklyn Grange — gives students a chance to study actual sites and develop related design projects. As part of the Green Roof Researchers Alliance since its inception, USL cosponsored the organization’s State of Green Roofs in NYC Conference with the Audubon Society.

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Project theme

Urban Ecology · Community Engagement · Urban Policy & Planning · Big Data & Artificial Intelligence

Project Team: Timon McPhearson

The Seeds of Good Anthropocenes project is a collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Centre funded initially through Future Earth. Our aim is to counterbalance dystopian visions of the future that may be inhibiting the ability to cooperate effectively on problem solving.

USL is working with project participants to solicit, explore, and develop a suite of alternative, plausible “good anthropocenes” — future scenarios that are socially and environmentally desirable, just, and sustainable.

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Project themes

Community Engagement · Environmental Justice & Equity