Jamaica Bay Watershed Ecological Atlas

A GeoA comprehensive view of the Jamaica Bay watershed helps managers strategically target vacant lots for potential ecological restoration, stormwater BMPs, and green infrastructure projects. This pilot system can ultimately be applied to watersheds throughout the state of New York.

In accordance with the Jamaica Bay Watershed Protection Plan, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP) contracted Biohabitats to inventory the lands within the watershed that are owned by city agencies and to assess them for both ecological restoration and stormwater management potential.

Biohabitats used GIS to create a comprehensive database of the watershed’s ecology, landcover, hydrology and infrastructure. After using these data to locate vacant lands, Biohabitats staff conducted field surveys of over 2,000 city-owned lots, developed sketches of their existing conditions, and created GIS data for proposed restorations and stormwater management practices at each site. To narrow the hundreds of parcels into an actionable and prioritized list, Biohabitats staff developed transparent site-selection criteria and a prioritization scheme based on GIS data and information gathered during field assessments. The site selection model was executable within GIS, and was extremely versatile. It allows for adding and removing variables as needed and weighting the variables according to their desired importance. The final model was able to classify over 90% of sites to match subjectively assessed control sites.

Biohabitats generated new data and a concise analysis for thousands of vacant parcels, and provided NYCDEP with robust tools for future conservation, restoration and stormwater management planning.

TAGS

• Analysis+Planning
• Assessment+Monitoring
• Conservation
• Ecological Restoration