NYC Urban Soils Institute

Soil is the fundamental material that supports every square foot, acre, and square mile of this City and its living green infrastructure. Only this kind of matrix can hold water, break down hydrocarbons, sequester metals, and facilitate all workings of Nature to make urban centers more sustainable. The huge job in front of all cities then is to build soils and the life they support into all urban development going forward and to incorporate the development of urban soils into the legacy landscapes that urban centers hope to preserve and sustain. As urban centers in the nation embrace green infrastructure for climate resiliency, water resources management, urban heat island mitigation, food security and long term sustainability, soil is no longer the sole domain of just agricultural sciences.

New York City has made great strides in greener and more sustainable environmental management in the past decade. Green infrastructure – whether for stormwater management, climate change mitigation, or food security – has become common vernacular among government agencies as well as private sector environmental professionals. This shift has resulted in more interactions with urban soils as evidenced by requests for urban soils data, information and training. Although the demand for the knowledge of urban soils has grown, it is clear that our understanding of urban soils has not kept pace and there is a significant gap between the needs and existing resources.
Emerging and well established fields that require urban soils research and coordination include:

Urban agriculture including community and home gardens as well as commercial operations
Urban reforestation and restoration projects
Stormwater management
Brownfield and soil remediation
Soil survey and mapping
Climate resiliency planning
These are not distinct and independent fields of management but are interrelated and require coordination of information dissemination as well as of planning and implementation. A centralized entity that can facilitate the flow and sharing of information and serve as a “one stop shop” for soils information and services is critical for the City.