Urban Ecosystem Services Symposium:

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Urban Ecosystem Services Symposium:

New tools to guide ecosystem management in an urbanizing world.

January 24, 2014

About the Conference

The Urban Ecosystem Services Symposium will explore the application and utility of urban ecosystem services scholarship by bringing together academics on the cutting edge of this science and city managers using the approach for urban planning. The event will assess the major questions and merits of the urban ecosystem services approach across global, regional, city, and community scales. The Symposium will engage around questions emerging from these studies and projects to catalyze a discussion and comparison of promising approaches and limitations.

Schedule of Events

8:00am to 9:00am

Breakfast

9:00am to 9:15am

Welcome

Dean Peter Crane

Dean, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
9:15am to 9:45am

Keynote

Mayor Caswell Holloway

NYC Deputy Mayor
9:45am to 12:00pm

Presentation of Models

Approaches to understanding and quantifying urban ecosystem services. Presenters will showcase diverse ecosystem services models sharing how
they can quantify, monitor, and describe the urban ecosystem services in
cities. Panelists will explore how these tools have been applied, current
limitations and what they accomplish that other models cannot.

Edward Barbier

University of Wyoming

Erika Svendsen

USDA Forest Service

David Nowak

USDA Forest Service

Leslie Shoemaker

Tetra Tech

Rob McDonald

The Nature Conservancy
12:00pm to 12:45pm

Lunch

12:45pm to 1:45pm

Panel One: Urban Micro-Climate

The panel includes a mix of researchers, urban planners and municipal
policy-makers to connect science and research to on-the-ground projects.
What urban microclimate management strategies are being practiced
and what goals (comfort, health, energy reduction) do we hope to
achieve with them? Is the effectiveness of these management strategies
quantifiable? How do we combine positive and negative effects into
a common set of matrices? How should we improve current ways of
measuring urban heat island to better represent human exposure?

Winston Chow

National University of Singapore

Aaron Durnbaugh

Loyola University

Stuart Gaffin

Columbia University

Tom Matte

NYC Department of Health and Human Hygiene

Xuhiu Lee

Yale University
Moderator
1:45pm to 2:45pm

Panel Two: Green Infrastructure and Stormwater

The panel includes a mix of researchers, regulators, communitybased
program managers and municipal policy-makers. The goal
is to encourage a conversation that connects the most recent green
stormwater infrastructure research, development and regulation to onthe-
ground projects. The discussion will focus on questions like: Within
the world of sustainable stormwater management, what do we need to
care about next? What questions for research are the most pressing?
Where are the gaps in knowledge? What are the barriers to widespread
implementation?

Ellen Gilinsky

Environmental Protection Agency

Mike Houck

Urban Green Space Institute at Portland State University

Aaron Koch

City of Chicago Department of Water Management

Franco Montalto

Drexel University

Jennifer Hoyle

Yale University
Moderator
3:00pm to 4:00pm

Panel Three: Coastal Protection, Sea Level Rise & Hurricanes

How are coastal cities working with natural capital to attenuate
sea level rise and coastal flooding in extreme events? This panel
will build on experience and case studies to elaborate on ecosystem
services related to coastal adaptation. Building on the discussions
on models in the morning, we will explore the relevance and shortfalls
of the models used to assess coastal risks. What are the roles of
FEMA, the Federal Flood Insurance Program, community disaster
recovery funds and block grants, and scientists analyzing tradeoffs
between gray (levees) and green (marshes)? What lessons does
New Orleans have for New York? What lessons are valuable across
urban to rural gradients?

Roselle Henn

USACE North Atlantic Division

Denise Reed

Water Institute of the Gulf

Gavin Smith

U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Coastal Hazards Center of Excellence

Dan Zarrilli

City of New York

Alexander Felson

Yale University
4:00pm to 5:00pm

Panel Four: The Use & Stewardship of Multifunctional Landscapes

This panel advances the notion that social and cultural processes
are critical to the health and resilience of urban ecosystems; that
these processes are complex; and that they require inquiry. The
questions remain: how do we understand the role of social and
cultural processes and infrastructure in urban ecosystems; and how
do we factor this understanding into ecological assessments that
so often rely on quantitative data and biophysical indicators? The
conversation will explore the dynamics of social and cultural values
and their bearing on urban ecosystem services, natural resource
management, and human well-being.

Lindsay Campbell

USDA Forest Service

Morgan Grove

USDA Forest Service

Hans Hesselein

Gonawus Canal Conservancy

Keith Tidball

Cornell University

Gillian Bane

USDA Forest Service
Moderator
5:00pm to 5:15pm

Closing Remarks

Gaboury Benoit

Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies