Success! We’ve recently gained funding to work on developing a standard protocol to assess the habitat value of ecologically enhanced engineered shorelines in the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary (yes, that’s a mouthful!).

The Core Waters of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program, where shorelines will be sampled in order to develop a standard protocol for coastal and estuary managers across the region

This project will run from late 2013 through 2014 and will be run by myself, Bob Newton from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and David Reid, an aquatic ecologist who teaches within EICES and E3B at Columbia. We’ll be collaborating with Jeff Levinton from Stony Brook University and David Strayer from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Mollie Thurman, my past MA student, will be the main field and educational partner, and we’ll be teaming up with high school interns from the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School and working with the The River Project as well.

Dave R and Bob out on the harbor to visit the Harbor School in initial site assessments

It’s a multi-faceted project with a really exciting range of great NY marine and estuarine minds involved!

So, what is an ‘engineered shoreline’ and how does one ‘ecologically enhance’ it?

An urban shoreline under the Brooklyn Bridge, NYC

(stay tuned for more details…)