CICEET Co-sponsors Chesapeake Bay Ecosystem Based Management Conference

May 5, 2009

DURHAM, N.H. -- The University of Connecticut's Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO) is enhancing and expanding the reach of its GIS-based online Community Resource Inventory (CRI).  The CRI is an online tool for communities interested in developing a natural resource inventory, but lacking the capacity to do so. The project is part of CICEET's Living Coasts Program, which is dedicated to providing coastal communities with more effective tools to grow in a way that preserves water quality, protects natural areas, and improves quality of life. Learn more about Living Coasts >

NEMO created the CRI to serve Connecticut land use decision makers. With CICEET's support, they have enhanced the CRI's functionality by adding specific coastal habitat and resource data and broadened its accessibility by making the tool more interactive and by providing conducting training opportunities for local officials. At a recent workshop, National NEMO Network and National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) representatives from Rhode Island, South Carolina, Minnesota, New York, and Delaware learned more about how to adapt the CRI to their states. Each of these states has begun to build their own CRI web sites and plan to have them available to communities by the early fall of 2009.

The Connecticut and Rhode Island NEMO teams, working with colleagues from the National Geospatial Technology Extension Network, have begun work on a web-based CRI Cookbook that will lay out how to build an online CRI site. The intent of the Cookbook will be to provide step-by-step guidance for others wishing to build a CRI, making use not only of the original Connecticut model but of the varied experiences and techniques of the five other states involved in the CICEET project.  For more information, contact Dave Dickson, National NEMO Network Coordinator: david.dickson@uconn.edu, (860) 345-5228. The CT CRI can be found at http://nemo.uconn.edu/tools/cri/