Central Park is becoming a center for the study of the place of urban parks in cities. A community of researchers from Yale University and New York's various environmental agencies have joined forces to pursue a cycle of research on the evolution of New York's iconic park in order to build "the best tools to combat the climate crisis.
What roles do parks play within cities? What place remains for nature in the urban environment and how is it changing with global warming? New York City is seeking to answer these questions by launching the Central Park Climate Lab, a place devoted to the study of adaptation strategies for the heat island phenomenon and to climate change more generally, in the city's iconic green space: Central Park.
Announced earlier this month, this new research "hub" brings together the Central Park Conservancy, the Yale School of the Environment and the Natural Areas Conservancy. This "unique setting" will serve as a reference in the study of urban parks. More broadly, it will ultimately serve the policy of combating global warming in such places at the municipal and national levels.
"There are over one million acres of urban parks in the United States, which are as vulnerable to the effects of climate change as wilderness areas, coastlines... there are no common maps or unified sources of information or policy recommendations to aid cities in the management and protection of these vital greenspaces in the face of challenges created by climate change," notes the Central Park Conservancy in a press release.
A new era in research to combat the climate crisis
Central Park has several characteristics that make it a good test case for the researchers. The park is not the largest in the city (that's Pelham Bay Park, located in the Bronx), but it is the most closely observed because of its fame throughout the United States and the world. The teams in charge of its maintenance have equipped it with numerous sensors and technological tools in order to follow any change in this 3.41 sq-km ecosystem; not to mention the team of gardeners and landscapers who take care of this space on a daily basis.
With the covid-19 pandemic, green spaces have become indispensable to city residents. Preserving them, maintaining them and supporting the well-being they provide to visitors remains the goal, the Central Park Conservancy suggests.
"The Central Park Climate Lab begins a new era in research and cooperation that will give our park professionals improved tools to combat the climate crisis," outlined the city's mayor Eric Adams in a press statement. "It will be a model for urban parks across the country."
