Understanding Your Urban Soils - NYC Urban Soils Institute.

The New York City Urban Soils Institute (USI) was founded by a partnership between the New York City Soil & Water Conservation District, the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, Brooklyn College, and the Gaia Institute. The mission of the USI is to advance the scientific understanding and promote the sustainable use of urban soils through research, education, and conservation.

As New York City adopts green infrastructure, urban agriculture, climate resiliency, ecological restoration our interactions with urban soils have rapidly increased in the past few years. However, our understanding of urban soils has not kept pace. There is an unmet need for programs that collaborate and support efforts in sustainable resource use and management.  In cities, we face paramount decisions and seek innovative solutions for issues related to legacy contamination, climate resiliency and a more sustainable future, and we realize that the solutions rely heavily on the understanding and proper use of soils and stormwater.

The USI has been developing workshops and field trainings, mobile exhibits, and leading urban soils research in New York City and other areas, to increase local knowledge and foster the next generation of soil scientists. We work closely with our local community organizations, strengthening the knowledge-dissemination through partnerships. We offer a wide range of soils training opportunities from lectures to hands-on field sessions for all ages.  We also developed curriculum and internship programs for college and graduate school level students. The USI is in its first year.  We would like to share with you our methods, formats and our case studies; trials and successes.