Treesearch

ArtPlace America (ArtPlace) is a 10-year consortium of a number of foundations, federal agencies, and financial institutions that works to position arts and culture as a core sector of comprehensive community planning and development. We do this work to help strengthen the social, physical, and economic fabric of communities. ArtPlace’s efforts are largely focused around "creative placemaking," which describes projects in which art plays an intentional and integrated role in place-based community planning and development. This brings artists, arts organizations, and artistic activity into...

Coastal wetlands are shrinking rapidly due to land-use activities. Accelerated sea-level rise (SLR) associated to the warming climate is also affecting coastal wetlands, particularly in islands with limited coastal plains.We analyzed coastal wetland changes in Puerto Rico by applying the Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model under two scenarios by 2100.We also analyzed mortality and recruitment in a freshwater swamp dominated by the tree Pterocarpus officinalis Jacq. in the context of landscape saltwaterintrusion and drought. Our results indicate mangroves and estuarine water would replace the...

From Seattle to Boise and Memphis to Boston, city agencies, civic institutions, and community residents are collaborating with neighbors to reinvent their public spaces. In many cities, shrinking budgets and outdated policies make public space investments challenging. In areas where there is little funding for formal parks and squares, which require large capital budgets and costly maintenance, local residents and stakeholders are focusing on small spaces that have been overlooked or forgotten: the abandoned lot in the neighborhood, the patch of green next to the formal park, or the bus...

Urban environmental stewardship (UES) is the act of caring for the environment to enhance the quality of life for the greater public good (Burch et al. 1993) "with the underlying assumption that doing so will improve the social– ecological functioning of specific urban areas" (Connolly 2013, p. 76). Indeed, a critical motivation for urban environmental stewards is to nurture places that are valuable for social as well as ecological reasons (Krasny et al. 2014, Tidball 2014). Though important, the contributions of UES to ecological resilience (e.g., promoting biodiversity) are under-recogniz...

Our aloha nui (profound affection) to you, dear readers! We are part of Hālau 'Ōhi'a, an intensive native Hawaiian stewardship and lifeways training program created to enhance the capacity of natural resources and conservation professionals to engage self, others, and place. The goal of this chapter is to share our collective professional and personal experiences in Hālau 'Ōhi'a from the perspective of both kumu (program developer and master instructor; Kekuhi) and haumāna (students; Heather, Christian, Kainana). We describe the pedagogy and epistemology of Hālau 'Ōhi'a and we share...

In the early 1990s land grant universities worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop a disaster education program to be coordinated via collaborations among U.S. state cooperative extension systems. Given that this Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) is funded directly and indirectly via USDA funding, and given that the Green Readiness, Response, and Recovery idea is an outgrowth of USDA Forest Service collaborations, there are numerous possibilities for green readiness, response, and recovery resources to be collaboratively developed with land grant partners...

Considerable research demonstrates the broad range of ecosystem services (i.e., benefits) attributed to urban trees either individually or in groups as part of parks, natural areas, riparian buffers, in green stormwater infrastructure, along streets, and in other urban public landscapes. Environmental services contributed by urban trees include stormwater management, carbon sequestration, and impacts on human health that include air quality and lower urban temperatures (urban heat island mitigation). Communities that adopt arboricultural standards and practices and implement comprehensive...

Urban areas are complex, multilayered systems that must carefully balance social and economic interests with built infrastructure, resource flows (energy, water, food, etc.), nonprofit and industry networks, and various levels of government. Each system is part of an overarching sector, which are interconnected and interdependent. Some may be in direct competition due to limited resources (municipal agency budgets), others may have competing goals (property developers versus preservationists) (Meerow 2016). It is the push and pull between diverse sectors that make cities incubators of...

On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall and caused extraordinary devastation across the northeastern United States (Figure 1). It was the second costliest disaster in the United States at the time and damaged some of the most densely populated areas of the country. The impacted area spanned county, regional, and state boundaries, encompassed entities that did not normally collaborate, and brought issues to light that were typically addressed independently by a variety of government authorities. With the complexity of the disaster and extent of damage, individuals that were...

The last 4 years have been the warmest years on Earth, since reliable recordkeeping began in 1880 (NASA 2018, NOAA 2018). Climate scientists project Earth will continue warming at an increasing rate through the 21st century due to the increasing abundance of human-produced heat-trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane. Both long-term global climate change and short-term natural variability patterns (e.g., El Niño-Southern Oscillation) are causing extreme regional weather and climate events with increasing frequency and severity. An extreme event can be any phenomenon that falls...