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New York City Urban Field Station

The New York City Urban Field Station's mission is to improve quality of life in urban areas by conducting and supporting research about social-ecological systems and natural resource management. It began as a partnership between the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. The Urban Field Station:

  • Promotes environmental stewardship and ecological literacy (people’s understanding of ecology) to improve human well-being in New York City, the country’s largest and most diverse metropolitan area.
  • Works with land managers to create innovative “research in action” programs that support urban ecosystems.
  • Conducts comparative research and shares findings with decision makers and researchers in other metropolitan regions in the United States and around the world.
  • Links to a growing network of U.S. Forest Service scientists and university partners who focus on urban research.

Background Information and History

The New York City Urban Field Station (UFS) is both a physical place to conduct research (the research facility at Fort Totten) and a network of scientists, practitioners, university partners, and facilities that focus on urban ecology. Since its founding in 2006, the UFS has engaged over 30 non-profit, academic, and government partners creating innovative “research in action” programs to support urban ecosystem management and sustainability initiatives in New York City.

Two core Urban Field Station (UFS) partners, the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, created a field lab and residential space for visiting scientists at historic Fort Totten in Queens, NY. Previously, research by scientists from outside the New York City area was often hampered by the costs of visiting the city and the lack of available lab space and research equipment. The Fort Totten facility allows scientists to reside and work in New York City on a temporary basis (up to 3 months) for data collection and other partnership work, greatly expanding the scientific and technical staff available to work throughout the five boroughs and the region.

Northern Research Station researchers in New York City focus primarily on four areas.

Tree planting in the South Bronx. USDA Forest Service photo.

Networks of public agencies, civic groups, private organizations, and individuals care for the urban environment. Who volunteers to steward urban ecosystems and how do volunteers get involved in these activities? How do different people and organizations use and care for open space as a form of civic engagement? How can a biocultural stewardship lens that sees natural resources as cultural resources help build more effective environmental programs and practices? How can co-learning and knowledge exchange help foster urban biocultural stewardship?

Selected Resources

Urban trees in Brooklyn Heights

Forest ecology research at the NYC Urban Field Station focuses broadly on understanding urban tree health and managing urban forest resources across the city. The urban forest includes street trees, landscaped trees, yard trees, and forest patches. The Urban Field Station research also extends across a network of cities to consider best practices for managing urban forest patches and applying silvicultural methods to urban forests. With this work, we ask:

  • How can we best measure tree and forest health?
  • How can we best manage urban forests in the face of climate change and other urban pressures?
  • How equitable is access to urban forest resources in New York City and other cities?

Healthy Trees, Healthy Cities (HTHC) is an urban tree health monitoring initiative led by the USDA Forest Service. It encourages researchers, managers, and community ecologists to measure and take care of city trees and forests across the country.

Trees and forests are valuable – especially in cities where they provide many benefits for people and nature. Urban forest managers need to keep city trees and forest patches healthy to ensure that these benefits (often called ‘ecosystem services’) continue for future generations. Nationally, USDA Forest Service researchers study how city environments affect trees and how healthy trees affect communities.

HTHC offers digital tools to manage and monitor city trees. Anyone can create an HTHC login and enter tree data from their community. The data collected helps local land managers take care of stressed trees and restore their health.

The HTHC tools do not offer as many features as professional tree management software programs and are not designed to replace those programs. Instead, HTHC data provides detailed health checks and pest tracking that can be used alongside other tools to give a better understanding of a tree’s health.

Healthy Trees, Healthy Cities App and New Training Materials: The new HTHC field tool and dashboard are now available (login required). We are adding new training materials, PowerPoints, and how-to guides to the dashboard. These will be available in both English and Spanish.

Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC): The HTHC program now includes a QA/QC feature in the app and dashboard. This feature helps check the accuracy of data collected and allows new users to compare their data with expert values. 

Learn More About Healthy Trees, Healthy Cities

Healthy Trees, Healthy Cities and Tree Health Resources

Urban Forest Patches and Urban Silviculture Resources

Gardener in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Resilience is the ability of individuals, communities, and ecosystems to adapt to change. Public health and resilience research at the Urban Field Station centers on how people benefit from connecting with the urban environment.

Researchers are exploring a wide range of topics from health and well-being to climate change resilience and how green infrastructure can support these goals. Research also examines the value of parks and nature in reducing stress, connecting communities, and supporting mental health. Scientists are also studying how climate adaptation efforts can meet both environmental and human needs.

Selected Resources

As more people live in cities, our connection to urban nature becomes more important than ever. How do people use and value public green spaces and natural areas? What meanings do they imbue to these spaces? How can social science methodologies be used as training tools that help land managers “read the landscape” for social use, value, and meaning?

Selected Resources

Fort Totten Research Facility

Two core Urban Field Station (UFS) partners, the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, created a field lab and residential space for visiting scientists at historic Fort Totten in Queens, NY. Previously, research by scientists from outside the New York City area was often hampered by the costs of visiting the city and the lack of available lab space and research equipment. The Fort Totten facility allows scientists to reside and work in New York City on a temporary basis (up to 3 months) for data collection and other partnership work, greatly expanding the scientific and technical staff available to work throughout the five boroughs and the region.

Applying to Stay at the NYC Urban Field Station

The UFS develops and applies adaptive management tools, technology transfer, and scientific research to improve human well-being and the natural environment in urban areas. It is a long-term research partnership to deepen understanding of urban ecosystems and strengthen urban natural resource stewardship.

There are two tracks for applying to stay at the UFS, depending on the length of the desired visit.

  • Visiting Scholars/Scientists (3 nights to 2 weeks stay): Please submit a one paragraph description of your intended UFS use, specifying any equipment needs and how the proposed research contributes to the Urban Field Station’s overall goals at least 30 days prior to the desired stay. Please also describe how you heard about the Urban Field Station, whether from colleagues, listserv emails, or Google Search.
  • Resident Scholars/Scientists (2 weeks to 3 months stay): Please submit the Urban Field Station Proposal Form to the UFS Coordinator at NYCUrbanFieldStation@gmail.com. In this form, applicants will need to specify their lab, equipment, office and other basic space requirements, in addition to information on project collaborators, funding, research goals and expected outcomes. NOTE: only applicants with NYC Parks Research Permits in good standing or past resident scholars and scientists are eligible for longer stays.

Requests for short-term stays (visiting scholars) received after the deadline will be considered pending space availability. Preference will be given to researchers collaborating directly with NYC Parks or Forest Service scientists. All approved applicants will need to sign the residence agreement.

NaturePLACE Collaborative Arts Program

The NaturePLACE Collaborative Arts Program is a network of place-based artist residencies supported by the USDA Forest Service, The Nature of Cities, and local partners. Selected artists engage with land managers and researchers to better understand, represent, and communicate about urban social-ecological systems through works of art and imagination. The program’s mission is to promote understanding of and engagement with urban ecology through art. To learn about previous artists in residence, visit NaturePlaceCollab.com.

More Information about the Urban Field Station

If you have any further questions or would like assistance, please email NYCUrbanFieldStation@gmail.com or call 718-225-3061.

The mailing address for the NYC Urban Field Station is:

USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station
NYC Urban Field Station
431 Walter Reed Road
Fort Totten Cluster #2, Box #12
Bayside, NY 11359-1137

Directions to the Field Station

ContactTitleAffiliationTelephone
Novem AuyeungSenior ScientistNYC Parks718-255-3061 x101
Naiyiri-Blu BrookerNatural Resources Training Coordinator (Monitoring)NYC Parks718-255-3061 x 116
Crystal CrownSenior Manager of Data and AnalyticsNatural Areas Conservancy 
Chrissy DohertyOperations Coordinator for the Natural Areas Training ProgramNYC Parks 
Helen ForgioneSenior EcologistNatural Areas Conservancy 
Carla GarciaEcologist-Natural Resources Monitoring Field ManagerNYC Parks 
Nichole McClainDirector of StewardshipNYC Parks 
Clara PregitzerDeputy Director of Conservation ScienceNatural Areas Conservancy 
Jennifer SmithNYC Urban Field Station Project Development CoordinatorNYC Parks718-255-3061 x103

Key Personnel

Staff

Data and Tools

Multimedia

Projects

Publications

  • Search for Peer Reviewed Publications

    Visit Treesearch and search for peer reviewed publications by Forest Service Urban Field Station Staff. Search the Treesearch catalog by author, title, publication year or keywords–or for those that are published in the Forest Service research series, by the station, series and number. Each publication comes with an abstract, citation information, and a link to download the full text document.

  • Additional Publications

    The public Pinyon folders linked below contain research and reports from field station staff, partners, and grey literature. No log in is required.  

    These publications have not been formally peer reviewed according to standards required for Forest Service research publications or those conducted by technical journals. 

Last updated April 17, 2026
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