Nancy Falxa Sonti

Urban environmental stewardship and changes in vegetative cover and building footprint in New York City neighborhoods (2000–2010)

This study explores the connections between vegetation cover change, environmental stewardship, and building footprint change in New York City neighborhoods from the years 2000 to 2010. We use a mixed-methods multidisciplinary approach to analyze spatially explicit social and ecological data. Most neighborhoods lost vegetation during the study period. Neighborhoods that gained vegetation tended to have, on average, more stewardship groups. We contextualize the ways in which stewardship groups lead to the observed decadal- and neighborhood-scale changes in urban vegetation cover. This multidisciplinary synthesis combines the strengths of quantitative data to identify patterns, and qualitative data to understand process. While we recognize the complexity of cities and the potential confounding factors, this exploratory analysis uses sound theory and data from a mixed methodological approach to show the role of urban environmental stewardship in affecting the New York City landscape.

Variability in Urban Soils Influences the Health and Growth of Native Tree Seedlings

Reforesting degraded urban landscapes is important due to the many benefits urban forests provide. Urban soils are highly variable, yet little is known about how this variability in urban soils influences tree seedling performance and survival. We conducted a greenhouse study to assess health, growth, and survival of four native tree species growing in native glacial till, coal ash, urban fill, and sandy clean fill soils collected from urban forest restoration sites in New York City. Using a multifactorial design, nine replicates of silver maple (Acer saccharinum), black birch (Betula lenta), red oak (Quercus rubra), and Canadian serviceberry (Amelanchier canadensis) were planted in four urban soil types and one greenhouse mix. We hypothesized that: 1) urban soil type would influence growth, health, and survivorship; 2) each tree species would respond differentially to each soil type; and 3) seedling stress and mortality would be higher for soils with more anthropogenic disturbance. After one growing season, we found that seedlings were less healthy and grew less in soils with a history of greater anthropogenic disturbance. Seedling mortality was low (< 3% overall) except for red oak seedlings in urban fill soil from one location. These results demonstrate that urban soil conditions can impact tree growth and health while supporting high survivorship. Species × soil type interaction for height growth and stress indicate that native tree species may not respond to urban soil conditions consistently. Consequently, matching tree species to soil type could help optimize establishment and growth of urban forest restoration projects.

Forest ethnography: An approach to study the environmental history and political ecology of urban forests

A landscape succession paradigm has shaped much of our understanding about the processes of forest emergence and transformation in the United States. Drawing heavily from theory and method in environmental history, this paradigm has focused attention on the role of landscape-scale shifts in land use and land cover in the production of forests. The geography of cities is patchy, dynamic and heterogeneous, with change and differences occurring at much smaller scales (e.g. Jacobs 1961; Clay 1973) compared to coarse scale of stand replacing successions affecting rural forests (Grove et al. Ecosyst Health and Sustain 2(9):e01239, 2016; Pickett et al. Urban Ecosyst 20(1):1–14, 2017). Therefore, trying to understand how urban forests came to be, as well as what they are, requires a research approach that is specific to the land use dynamics of cities and attentive to the social life of urban forests. In response to this methodological gap, this paper describes a research approach called “forest ethnography,” which we are piloting in Baltimore, Maryland as part of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), one of the National Science Foundation’s urban Long-term Ecological Research Programs (LTER). As we describe, we propose that an urban forest ethnography approach can contribute to our understanding of both forest environmental history and urban political ecology.

Long-Term Outcomes of an Urban Farming Internship Program.

Long-term impacts of an urban farming youth internship were evaluated in Brooklyn, New York. Alumni surveyed 1 to 9 years after program completion were enrolled in college or graduate school at higher rates than their peers and reported connections to the environment and healthy eating. Participants reported learning job skills through the internship, including farming practices, time and money management, teamwork, and public speaking. In addition, participants reported an increased sense of responsibility, high levels of self-confidence, and strong connections with their community. The amount of time spent in the internship positively affected attitudes and behaviors regarding communication and decision-making.

Social-ecological research in urban natural areas: an emergent process for integration

Understanding the structure and function of urban landscapes requires integrating social and ecological research. Here, we integrate parallel social and ecological assessments of natural areas within New York City. We examined social data (from a rapid assessment of park use and meaning, collected at a park zone level) alongside ecological data (from a plot-based assessment of forest structure and diversity). In-depth interviews with researchers and managers (n = 11) involved with the social and ecological assessments revealed commonly-held values considered critical for integration, including clear communication, openness, trust, and shared goals and also identified barriers to the integration process, including the scales at which each dataset was collected. We applied an informed, shared problem framing to investigate the relationships between visitor use and ecological condition in urban natural areas. We began with fuzzy cognitive modeling, where researchers developed models of defining a “healthy urban forest.” We then developed two social-ecological typologies to examine the integrated dataset in relation to how visitors may affect or perceive ecological health and threat. Typologies identify NYC natural areas where social indicators (number of visitors, diversity of park use motivations) are either high or low and ecological condition is either high or low. Examination of these typologies led to exploring correlations between social and ecological variables, to team discussions, and to developing new research questions. We conclude this paper with a discussion of tradeoffs of this type of emergent, integrative approach to social-ecological synthesis research.

Why Garden? Personal and Abiding Motivations for Community Gardening in New York City

Abstract We explore the underlying motivations of NYC community gardeners in order to gain greater insight into how these valued public resources support individual and community well-being. Semi-structured interviews were used to capture a range of enduring gardener motivations over time. We find that the underlying motivations of NYC community gardeners are both personal and collective. For many, community gardens provide a space for reflection and for profound connection to the natural world. Gardening was reported to be restorative, and to help to strengthen an individual’s connection to a larger community or cultural heritage. Themes of joy and personal fulfillment were consistently most prevalent over time, while the impulse to improve the community decreased in prevalence, and food production and cultural identity connections became more common motivations, possibly reflecting broader social shifts in NYC neighborhoods.