skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


This content will become publicly available on December 31, 2026

Title: Community-based Brownfield engagement tool in Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Introduction: Without community-based, data-aggregation tools, timely and meaningful local input into brownfield management is not tenable, as relevant data are dispersed and often incomplete. in response, this project lays the groundwork through which constructive dialogue between community members and local officials can be facilitated.Materials and methods: a Brownfield engagement tool (Bet) is envisioned as a means by which non-experts can use disparately held open data streams to collect, analyse, and visualise brownfield site data, better understand aggregate health risks, and provide direct input into remediation and redevelopment decisions. By raising awareness and providing knowledge about brownfield related issues, the Bet is intended as a means to encourage community member participation in public debate. this concept is demonstrated for a 113-hectare Brooklyn, New York neighbourhood with a long history of industrial and mixed-use development resulting in 18 brownfields. the proposed remediation prioritization strategy offers a systematic analysis of the sites’ size, contaminants, and proximity to gathering spots and demographics.Results: the Bet proposed in this paper offers a novel approach for community-based management of brownfields done at the census tract level and based on factors that most affect the local community. By combining publicly-available, municipal, state, and federal data in the Bet, a set of easy-to-understand metrics can be generated through which a community can compare and rank existing brownfields to prioritize future interventions and can be used as a support system for raising funding and investments to address neighbourhood issues. this type of approach is the first of its kind with respect to brownfield redevelopment.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1826134 2133356
PAR ID:
10576315
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Taylor and Francis
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Sustainable Communities
Volume:
2
Issue:
1
ISSN:
2993-1282
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
Sunset Park, Brooklyn community brownfields remediation ranking tool
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. An improvement networked community (NIC) could provide families, local business owners, civic groups, neighbourhood organizations, youth groups, churches and academic institutions the opportunity to become involved in a community-based network to protect natural resources in and out their neighbourhoods. Emphasizing problem-solving approaches to environmental issues could stimulate interest, motivation, and self-efficacy for STEM learning for students and for improving STEM teaching for teachers [5-7]. Helping students take on challenging scientific problems and cope with and overcome the setbacks in field and laboratory settings can help combat negative stereotypes faced by underrepresented groups in STEM and encourage students to adopt “growth mind-sets” [8] while crossing critical educational junctures to innovate and contextualize best practices in for high-impact. 
    more » « less
  2. How do communities living with chronic environmental contamination cope with the social, political, and economic impacts of the contamination? This research employs a community-engaged oral history approach with participant observation and archival research to address this question. We focus on the case of Tallevast, Florida, where the local groundwater has been contaminated with chlorinated solvents for over 60 years and where cleanup is estimated to take another 100 years. In addition to concerns about health and wellness, we find that residents are also concerned about household displacement and the disruption of social networks, failed governance at the local and state levels, and financial stress from rising healthcare costs and declining property values. Coping strategies used by the community to address these issues include reliance on churches as community hubs, environmental justice organising to contest authority and advocate for local knowledge and equity in decision making, and civil legal action to seek financial relief. These strategies support efforts toward restorative justice that seeks to repair relationships and trust between stakeholders needed for community redevelopment and revitalisation by promoting equity in being able to contribute meaningfully to decisions that affect resident’s health and the environment. 
    more » « less
  3. ABSTRACT. Data availability challenges the management of small-scale fisheries in large river basins. One way to circumvent the challenges of data collection is to rely on local stakeholders who are well-positioned to collect data that can inform management through community-based monitoring (CBM). Although science and management has increasingly considered opportunities for community involvement in scientific research, the efficacy of these programs are rarely assessed. We describe a current CBM initiative in the Kuskokwim River Basin of western Alaska. We then explore how existing approaches for incorporating local involvement in fisheries research and management measure against claims made by CBM programs to understand pathways for data utility for decision makers and approaches to capacity building and meaningful engagement of local citizens. We identify major gaps in the CBM literature and explore one of these gaps through an interview-based study of public participation in the Kuskokwim. We find that the CBM program intent to collect high quality data was complemented by increasing trust in data stewards. Ultimately, through our interview findings we illustrate how definitions of local engagement differ, how CBM data is used by decision makers, and how trust in data is dependent on trust in data stewards and the infrastructure that supports that stewardship. 
    more » « less
  4. This dissertation provides a foundation for understanding how water governance has changed over time, how watershed positionality and governance level shape the goals and strategies as well as the coordination of organizations actively involved in water issues, and how local, rural stakeholders changed legacy groundwater management. The first study examines the evolution of Colorado River Basin water management over the last century to understand how changing environmental conditions and path dependency have shaped past water management changes. Improved understanding can help inform policy responses to current challenges. The combined spatial, temporal, and network analyses show that Colorado River Basin water governance has been influenced by 100 years of rules that are layered and still in place. The rules have evolved water management strategies over time, shifted the emphasis of water management actions, and changed the distribution of authority across actions and rule levels. The second study explores how water management coordination varies based on governance level and physical location in the watershed. Additionally, this study analyzes how the level of governance and hydrologic position of organizations shape goals, strategies, and beliefs about the risks and benefits of changes to Colorado River Basin water management factors. The content and cluster analysis found the level of governance more influential than the hydrologic position and that coalitions can rearrange in a short period of time based on how the issue is framed. The last study unveils how local, rural residents were able to change legacy groundwater management through a process that began with a social movement to a ballot initiative to public input on groundwater management via a management goal-setting policy process in the Douglas Groundwater Basin in Arizona. The framing analysis shows that the public can identify problems and solutions, including paired solutions, but residents do not know whom to identify as being responsible for addressing water management in the basin. 
    more » « less
  5. The collaborative study on gender equality and empowerment in the Arctic (UGEEA) aims to improve understanding of gender equality issues in the New Arctic at the national, regional, and local levels, identify concrete strategies for gender political, economic, and civic empowerment, and thereby facilitate sustainable policymaking for the New Arctic. This study employs an inclusive, collaborative approach to collect and analyze datasets, documents, and case studies to understand to what extent political, economic, and civic empowerment is distributed by gender. Broader impacts of the UGEEA Project include recommendations for the promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, raising public awareness of gender issues in the Arctic, and the development of a publicly available data compendium on gender empowerment. The study also aims to narrow the existing knowledge gaps on gender empowerment across Circumpolar regions by including an assessment of gender empowerment at different levels relevant to the Arctic countries — national/quasi-national (for Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland), subnational (regional), municipal, and local (community) levels. The dataset examines gender earnings gap, gender disparity in tertiary education, and women's political leadership in the Arctic at the regional/(sub)national levels. 
    more » « less