‘Mussel Raft’ aides water filtration

An interesting experiment in water pollution management is taking place in the Bronx River estuary near Hunts Point in New York City. Scientists are testing the use of a ‘Mussel Raft’ for addressing nitrogen pollution from treated sewage that ends up in the water from a nearby treatment facility.

Mussels are known for their filtration properties and are being tied to lines on the raft to assist in water filtration. Non-edible ribbed mussels were chosen in the hope they would not be harvested to be eaten. The mussels filter about 1.6 liters of water (0.4 gallons) every hour. Find the full story in The New York Times.

New study on link between trees and lower crime rates

Previous studies have shown that trees are associated with lower crime rates and a new study in Baltimore affirms this finding, showing the link goes beyond a correlation between the two factors. In other words, it’s not just a matter of wealthier neighborhoods having lower crime rates. The study controlled for socioeconomic factors and found a 10% increase in trees “roughly equaled” a 12% decrease in crime rates.

More and more evidence points to the significant return on investment from trees – citing cooling effects, air quality benefits and lower crime rates.

(via Kaid Benfield’s Blog – Natural Resources Defense Council)

A century of wetland restoration efforts

A recent analysis of wetland restoration efforts sheds new light on the success of a 100-year history of such work to reclaim these highly important ecosystems. Restoration has been a major undertaking in recent decades as development has damaged and otherwise claimed over half of the wetlands in areas like North America, Europe, Australia, and China.

The study looked at monitoring done at 621 restored or created wetlands around the world, comparing them with nearly the same amount of undisturbed natural wetlands. It revealed that the recovery of physical and biotic properties–the parts of a wetland that we can usually see and orient restoration toward–happened at a different timescale than the overall functioning of the ecosystem, which more closely followed the process of secondary succession after natural disturbances.

Promisingly, the study demonstrated that full recovery of human-damaged ecosystems is possible in most cases within one to two human generations, given time, a focus on recovering processes rather than single elements, and solid ecological understanding.

(via NYTimes Green Blog)

Bird-watching as citizen science

The WildLab is an iPhone app that allows bird-watching citizens and students to contribute to research about bird populations and distributions. The app helps institutions like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology develop mobile strategies for citizen science initiatives, engaging learners with curricula and projects that contribute to scientific research. Users record observations with the help of bird identification tools such as a menu of bird silhouettes, songs and colors. They can then track the number of a specific species in a particular area, calculated by the phone’s GPS.  Data gathered is then shared with partner institutions.

New York, new bees

Lasioglossum gotham

Four new species of bees have been identified in New York State. Among them is  Lasioglossum gotham, discovered at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, as small as a grain of rice. It burrows its home underground. The species was distinguished  from other tiny look-alikes through DNA bar coding and digital imaging. The discovery, made in 2009, was part of an ongoing bee biology survey in New York City parks. Another bee, Lasioglossum katherinae, had been sitting unidentified in a drawer at the Museum of Natural History since 1903 until these new techniques helped to reveal its identity. Both species are  ‘sweat bees,’ meaning they get some of their nourishment by lapping it off the skin of humans and other animals. But most of their sustenance is still acquired from the pollen and nectar of flowers.

New York City is home to more than 200 bee species, though the city’s bees are not immune to colony collapse. The identification of a new species is welcome news amidst this ongoing ecological crisis.

(via The New York Times)

NYC parks are good resources for migrating birds

A recent study by scientists at the Wildlife Conservation Society has found that urban parks are comparable stopover landscapes to non-urban sites in providing refueling grounds for migrating birds. Researchers examined migrant stopover biology in Prospect Park, Inwood Park and Bronx Park to better understand how birds use city parks during migration. The non-urban sites selected for the study were Marshlands Conservancy and Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Westchester County, which have similar forest stand composition to the urban parks but vast differences in nearby human population density. The study measured mass gain and triglyceride levels in surveyed birds and found these levels comparable across sites. Chad L. Seewagen, Ph.D, who prepared the Project’s report, has three ideas as to why urban stopovers are, contrary to expectation, as satisfactory as their non-urban counterparts:

• Though parks are fragmented and surrounded by heavy development in NYC, it is possible that they retain enough of the properties of larger, intact forests to offer migratory birds satisfactory refueling grounds.
• It might be that these birds are so flexible in their requirements during migration that they are able to exploit even the most unfamiliar habitats.
• Seewagen hypothesizes that the heat island effects of urban environments actually improve refueling conditions: warmer air in cities allows the birds’ terrestrial grub to thrive and survive further into the autumn season.

The report cautions against taking its findings to indicate that migratory habitat is not impacted by urbanization. It also notes that observing a dense presence of migratory birds in a certain area does not necessarily prove it to be a satisfactory refueling point, only an available one.

Two-in-one solar-wind turbine in prototype stage

Scientists at the University of Liverpool are developing a new wind turbine dubbed the “Heat Waver” that uses solar photovoltaic rotors to generate energy even when the wind isn’t blowing. The team, headed by Dr. Joe King, has built a prototype and is currently determining an installation site on which to test it. There are still many technical issues to iron out, but Dr. King has hope that his team can “transform the world’s renewable energy needs,” citing locations such as Morocco, Italy, Spain, and Australia as areas where the technology could potentially be highly beneficial.

(via Inhabitat)

Call for submissions: post-natural futures

Kerb, a progressive landscape architecture publication produced by the RMIT University School of Architecture and Design in Melbourne, Australia, is looking for submissions for its next issue, Paradigms of Nature: Post Natural Futures.

Are we steering in an ‘un-natural’ direction, or taking the evolutionary leap necessary to establish a more integrated mode of co-existence?

We are entering a period of extreme technological escalation, where we can now synthesise technologies with living systems. It may soon be possible to create self-generating, manufactured landscapes that have the ability to grow, repair, decay and multiply, responding to a multitude of forces.

How will the development of these bio-technological possibilities shape the way we create landscapes where the city environment could transform into a dynamic, interactive organism of limitless potential?

In what ways will the urban landscape adapt and change with these neo-natural realities, where it becomes increasingly difficult to draw tangible lines between what we preserve as ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’?

But will all this current wild speculation about a future predicting synthetic biological ecologies, trans-natural robotic systems and post-natural organisms ever be realised, and how useful is it in meeting our collective ideals?

Submissions of experimental and innovative design projects, research, written, and photographic works, collages, digital animations or film are due to kerb@ems.rmit.edu.au by March 14, 2011.

(via Pruned)

Robin Nagle on the City’s relationship to Sanitation

Thanks to the huge crowd that came out to Robin Nagle’s talk in our lecture series two weeks back.  Standing in front of a fascinating slideshow featuring many of the men and women who keep New York City clean (or–more than that–keep New York City alive, as artist Mierle Ukeles famously phrased it), Robin discussed her academic approach to Sanitation, the stigma we attach to the work San Men and Women do and some hypotheses as to how those stigmas develop and why they stick.  It was a passionate and heartfelt address about the value of Sanitation workers that also included some explanation of the mechanics of Sanitation vehicles and the skills required to operate them.  Thanks go to Robin, most of all, for volunteering her insights to the appreciative crowd.

You can stream the entire audio of the talk, below, or download it directly as an MP3 (74 minutes, 68MB).

Dr. Steven Handel on urban ecological restoration

We’re playing catch-up recapping some of our recent events.  Last month’s talk by Dr. Steven Handel, Director of the Center for Urban Restoration Ecology (CURE) at Rutgers University, was an informative and engaging overview of Dr. Handel’s work, including a discussion of ‘ecological services’ and why urban ecology is so important.  Dr. Handel also elaborated on his research on seed dispersal and tree growth at Fresh Kills and his ecological design work on Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Orange County Great Park.  Big thanks go both to him and to the appreciative crowd who turned out to hear him and engage in some thoughtful Q&A afterward.

You can stream the entire audio of the talk, below, or download it directly as an MP3 (53 minutes, 48MB).