1. CIMIC Collaborations with HMDC: The Meadowlands Environmental
Research Institute
and Digital Meadowlands
Dr. Kirk Barrett, MERI Research Director

2. Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute
Established in 1998 by Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission and Rutgers - CIMIC
Research center for environmental issues significant to the Hackensack Meadowlands
Administered by Rutgers--CIMIC
HMDC provides funding, laboratory equipment and analyses, GIS support, office space, access to sites, guidance for research agenda

3. Hackensack Meadowlands District
Estuary centered around the Hackensack River in northeastern New Jersey; 32 sq. miles, 5 miles from downtown Manhattan
Administered by the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission (HMDC), a NJ state agency, since 1969
Water resources: river, tidal creeks, human-made channels, wetlands acres or 40% of district
Heavily affected by past industrial waste discharge and solid waste disposal
Supports many bird, fish and invertebrate species including threatened or endangered species
Active wetland restoration/enhancement and environmental education programs by HMDC
Extensive transportation infrastructure; large existing developments; intense development pressure
Carefully watched by environmental advocates

4. Hackensack Meadowlands District

5. MERI Personnel Rutgers HMDC Nabil Adam, Director of CIMIC
Kirk Barrett, MERI Research Director
Francisco Artigas, MERI Director of Information Systems
HMDC
Alan Steinberg, Executive Director
Robert Ceberio, Deputy Director
Irfan Bora, Chief Fiscal Officer

6. MERI Research Themes

7. Sponsored Research Internal Research
Open, competitive RFP
Funded 16 projects to date, with PIs from 4 different institutions
Variety of projects: Invasive species control, vegetative history, sediment contamination, benthic biodiversity, microbial ecology, information technology
Internal Research
Focused on information technology and environmental monitoring

8. Information and Data Management “Digital Meadowlands”
Web-based system to support environmental research and decision making about land, natural resources and the environment
Five modules:
Satellite Images,
Monitoring Data,
Reports Catalog,
Interactive Maps,
Videos
Accessible from HMDC, CIMIC & MERI web sites

9. Digital Meadowlands Objectives
Expedite and improve processing of permit applications and planning of greenspace acquisition and restoration
Provide on-line access to relevant information to potential permittees (eg., zoning information)
Provide background for environmental research projects and disseminate results
Inform the public about the environmental quality of the District
Generate science content for educational programs

10. Infotech Research/Problem Areas
Image processing
Managing/integrating multiple data types (maps, photos, reports metadata, text data, spatial and temporal numeric data)
Interactive maps
Data visualization
Online Modeling

11. Satellite Images
CIMIC hosts a NASA Regional Application Center (RAC), sponsored by HMDC (
Daily down-link of NOAA satellite images (AVHRR; 1 km resolution)
Numerous Landsat images of NY/NJ at different seasons (30 m resolution)
On-line searchable database of images

12. Query of Image Database

13. Query Results

14. Landsat Image

15. Environmental Monitoring
- Quarterly water quality monitoring of the Hackensack River and tributaries
- Continuous, automated monitoring stations
Water (stage, pH, temperature, DO, salinity)
Weather (temperature, humidity, radiation, precip)
Air quality (ozone, CO, NOx, SOx, particulates)
- Data from ad-hoc projects

16. New, Automated, Continuous, Environmental Monitoring System for the Meadowlands
Sampling intervals of every 5 minutes
Data is stored in electronic loggers with remote retrieval by modems
Data automatically ingested into database with Web interface, providing near real-time data
Allows monitoring at hard-to-reach places and at inopportune times
Allows prompt discovery of problems and helps uncover trends, cycles and relationships

17. Automatic Weather and Water Monitoring Stations
Weather station with
data logger
Water monitor
Cellular modem link
Data logger

18. Trend identifiable only with continuous monitoring: inverse relationship between tidal level and dissolved oxygen in the Hackensack River

19. Near-real-time, WWW-based data management challenges
Automated data retrieval via modem
Automatic ingest into database
Current conditions display of current readings
Display/download of historic data
Automated, continuous data validation
Adding value to data through contextualization and visualization
Meeting needs of different user communities

20. Data Retrieval -- Text Interface

21. Advanced interface: Clickable map of monitoring stations3

22. Current Conditions display
From Univ of CT’s MYSound,

23. Reports Database Electronic catalog of reports housed at HMDC
Conventional parameters -- title, author, date, etc.
Metadata on each document --study areas, biota, water bodies, chemicals, etc.
Specific locations sampled or analyzed by each document
WWW, geographic interface, to allow query by location
Hotlinks to on-line abstract and figure for some reports

24. Geographic
interface
for “query
by sampling
location”.
Each yellow
square
represents
a sampling
location.

25. Text Query Interface

26. Text Interface Query Results

27. Display of
sampling
locations
for a
specific
report
(in red)

28. Interactive Maps
Present information on the Web in the form of interactive maps.
Zoom, pan, identify, turn on/off layers
Integration between GIS and the Web

29. Interactive Maps

30. Standard GIS Tools

32. Videos

33. Example Applications (current and future)
Obtain past and present ownership and tax information for specific parcels
Obtain permit history for any parcel
Overly parcel boundaries over timeseries of aerial photos to identify construction/demolition of buildings
Use water level monitoring data and elevation map to visualize on aerial photo the effect of breaching dikes.

34. The Future improvements to user interface integration of data sets
more focus on specific user needs
online, GIS modeling
webcam(s)

35. MERI and Digital Meadowlands -- http://cimic.rutgers.edu/meri
The End
MERI and Digital Meadowlands --