NEMO (Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials) is a University of Connecticut Program for local land use officials addressing the relationship of land use to natural resource protection. Learn More.
About NEMO
Stormwater
Mapping
Habitat
Geospatial Training
Hands-on training courses to introduce new users to GIS, GPS and remote sensing technologies.
CT Land Use Academy
The Connecticut Land Use Academy provides education for local land use commissions on the basic skills needed to support sound decision making.
CLEAR
NEMO is a part of the University of Connecticut Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR). CLEAR provides information, education and assistance to Connecticut's land use decision makers on how to better protect natural resources while accommodating economic growth.
The National NEMO Network
The National NEMO Network is a confederation of 32 educational programs in 31 states dedicated to protecting natural resources through better land use and land use planning.
FEATURED
Low Impact Development Inventory
NEMO's Low Impact Development (LID) Inventory is an online resource providing geo-referenced examples of innovative stormwater management practices across Connecticut. The original CT NEMO LID Inventory inspired a collaborative effort between the CA NEMO program and the National NEMO Network to create a national LID database of LID practices, the National LID Atlas.
CT LID Inventory | National LID ATLAS
Rain Garden Demonstration Site
NEMO Rain Garden Installation Video
Rain gardens are shallow depressions in the landscape that typically include plants and a mulch layer or ground cover. Their purpose is to help retain water runoff during a storm event, allowing the water to filter into the ground naturally.
NEMO's newest rain garden installation is going to be featured in two new projects, a smartphone application and a "how to" rain garden website, both currently in production. The two projects are focused on helping people easily create both a beautiful and functional rain garden on their own through a simple step-by-step process.
NEMO's newest demonstration rain garden was featured in Meriden's Record-Journal Newspaper on Sunday.
Eagleville Brook Watershed Project
In 2006, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection issued an impervious cover Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the Eagleville Brook Watershed, located on the University of Connecticut campus and in the Town of Mansfield, CT. The TMDL, approved by the Environmental Protection Agency in February 2007, represents the first of its kind in the nation. While traditional TMDLs typically target a specific pollutant, this one addresses the impacts of urban development directly by using impervious cover as the TMDL’s metric. What are the implications of this precedent-setting approach, and how to respond?
Workshops
The heart of the NEMO program is face-to-face workshops for local officials. NEMO offers a number of workshop topics to help you target the challenges your town faces.
Rain Gardens
Residential Rain Garden Training
A practical 1.5 day short course for landscapers, designers, maintenance care providers and volunteers.
Linking Land Use to Water Quality
The Linking Land Use to Water Quality workshop addresses the relationship of land use to natural resource protection with an emphasis on water quality. It explains the concepts of nonpoint source pollution and watersheds as well as reviewing the impacts of land use on water resources. Natural resource-based planning is introduced as a framework for dealing with land use issues.
Planning for Stormwater
Impervious surfaces like asphalt, concrete and rooftops generate polluted runoff and are a major indicator of the impacts of development on water resources. This workshop reviews planning and site design options to reduce both the amount and the impact of impervious surfaces. It also includes information on road and parking lot designs and alternative materials that promote infiltration.
Managing Stormwater in Urban Areas
This presentation focuses on “restorative redevelopment” strategies and opportunities for managing stormwater in urban areas. Planning and design considerations for stormwater-friendly roads, parking lots, roofs and other stormwater-generating surfaces are reviewed. This workshop touches on all the same areas as the Planning for Stormwater workshop, but with examples drawn from urban, rather than rural or suburban, landscapes.
Conducting a Community Resource Inventory (CRI)
In order to protect your town's resources and character, you first
have to know what those resources are and what makes up the "character"
of your town! A complete Community Resource Inventory (CRI) is made
up of three different resource inventories: natural, cultural and economic.
This workshop describes the importance of each, where you can get resources
and information, and what to do with the inventory once it is completed.
Open Space Planning
Even when land trusts and towns are actively seeking to protect open space, there is usually no concrete plan as to where, how or even why open space should be acquired. This workshop includes methods and options on how to inventory, prioritize and acquire open space.
Natural Resource-based Planning for Watersheds
The NEMO Team has found there are two major stumbling blocks to local watershed efforts, an inability to get started and an overload of maps/information. This workshop and its companion publication Natural Resource-Based Planning for Watersheds—A practical Starter Kit For Watershed Projects will outline a process that will help you get started!
Coastal Habitats
Is your community in the coastal area of Connecticut? If so, this workshop is your point of entry into an integrated educational program to help your town better protect priority coastal habitat areas.
Connecticut Stormwater Quality Manual
The Connecticut Stormwater Quality Manual provides guidance on the measures necessary to protect the waters of the State of Connecticut from the adverse impacts of post-construction stormwater runoff. This manual focuses on site planning, source control and stormwater treatment practices and is intended for use as a planning tool and design guidance document by the regulated and regulatory communities involved in stormwater quality management.
Connecticut's Changing Landscape (CCL)
Using satellite images, the University of Connecticut Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR) has produced maps and charts documenting land cover change in Connecticut from 1985 to 2002. Highlighted are developed areas as well as areas in agricultural and forest land cover. This research has for the first time provided a basis to compare land cover trends over time. This has proven especially useful in discussions on smart growth and sprawl issues that are often debated on emotion rather that hard research. The workshop reviews the research and describes how it might be used by local land use officials in resource inventories, open space plans, economic development plans and plans of conservation and development.
Wet Lands
The Wet Lands workshop goes over the basic functions and values of wetlands, as well as the regulatory issues surrounding wetland protection and wetland/watercourse buffers. This workshop is a partnership between Cooperative Extension and the Connecticut Sea Grant College Program.
GIS in Your Town
The GIS in Your Town workshop is designed to introduce municipal officials and volunteers to basic GIS concepts and terminology. The workshop presents information to help organizations understand some of the planning, management, database and application issues important to successful GIS programs.
Forest Stewardship
The Forest Stewardship workshop can help landowners get the information they need to help protect and manage their forested land, now and in the future.
