Jennifer Cherrier is a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and an expert in aquatic carbon and nitrogen biogeochemistry. Much of her latest research has involved water resource sustainability and nature-based approaches for offsetting urban flooding as well as human impacts on marine and freshwater systems.  

Cherrier and her research group developed the smart-sensored hybrid technology known as eco-WEIR, a system that augments green infrastructure to control stormwater retention times, maximizes pollutant removal efficiencies, and allows for water storage and reuse. It has been deployed locally in Prospect Park to help combat toxic algae blooms. 

Cherrier led the $1.8 million New York City Stormwater Resiliency Study that was funded by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP). The goal of this multi-institutional grant-funded work was to develop plans to help mitigate flooding from extreme and chronic storms. Benefits from this work included maps and models detailing New York City flood risks from current and future storm scenarios, which served as Phase 1 of the NYC Stormwater Resiliency Plan published in May 2021. 

On March 24, Cherrier co-organized a symposium with Alan Cohn of the NYC DEP, Meeting Urban Stormwater and Coastal Resiliency Challenges via Cross-Sectoral and City-to-City Collaborations, which was part of the UN 2023 Water Congress. Attended by officials from the Mayor’s Office, as well as international experts from academic, public, and private sectors, the conference included Cherrier’s Brooklyn College colleague and panelist Associate Professor Brett Branco, whose work on the free, public online flood tracking system FloodNet recently received a $7.2 million grant from New York City for a large expansion.  

During Earth Month this April, we asked Cherrier about the conference and what she hopes will come from similar partnerships in relation to these issues. 

What was your goal in organizing the symposium? 

The goal of the symposium was to bring together national and international experts from academic, public, and private sectors who are currently engaged in cross-sectoral integrated water management (IWM) approaches for urban stormwater and coastal resiliency. Specifically, it provided a forum to build or strengthen partnerships and for attendees to share their experiences and lessons learned in the work they’ve done, and to discuss plans for meeting future challenges. This effort was a continuation of my collaborations with the city in bringing various stakeholders together to collectively address stormwater and coastal resiliency challenges. In the case of our UN 2023 Water Conference, the targeted stakeholders were people from city agencies, academia, and the private sector. Other important objectives of the conference were to increase the visibility of Brooklyn College and the many contributions we’ve made to the city’s stormwater and coastal resiliency efforts, and to expose our students to these critical challenges, various career paths for addressing the challenges, and networking opportunities. 

Why do you feel these public and private partnerships are so important in dealing with these issues? 

Urban flooding poses risks to human health and safety, causes extensive property damage, exposes vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, and leads to the degradation of adjacent waters. In coastal cities like New York, the risks are compounded when chronic and extreme rainfall coincides with storm surges and high tides. With projected increased frequency of extreme precipitation and storm events associated with climate change, these problems will become even more acute. Responding to these myriad challenges will require dynamic planning with holistic and integrated water management approaches that span jurisdictional and geographical boundaries and that provide equitable solutions to meet both community and environmental needs. IWM encompasses a broad array of context-dependent practices that will require diverse, cross-sectoral expertise from and between academic, public, and private sectors to meet its full potential.  

As a professor, why do you think it is important for institutions of higher learning like Brooklyn College to be part of these efforts? 

While there is much engagement between municipal and private sectors in the implementation of IWM approaches, collaboration with academic institutions is also critically important for introducing innovation and for training a well-equipped workforce to meet current and future challenges.  

What is currently happening with the city’s Stormwater Resiliency Plan? 

Our foundational work on the plan provided the city with critical information regarding flooding hotspots, information on the various vulnerabilities experienced in communities across the city in response to this flooding, and a series of IWM intervention strategies for offsetting these risks. The work that we did identifying the flooding hotspots is providing the city with critical information regarding which areas and communities are most vulnerable to flooding and, as such, has informed the new FloodNet effort, such as where to place sensors. Conversely, as the FloodNet sensors continue to come online, they are providing important ground truthing for our models and helping to validate the model outputs. In essence it helps the city to fine tune its responses to flooding. Also, the city just launched a new Cloudburst Hub initiative (flood intervention strategy) that will be implemented in five neighborhoods, and the past and present work I’m engaged in continues to inform these efforts.  Most recently, it has resulted in the sister-city work with New York and Copenhagen and Amsterdam (two important city partners in stormwater/climate resiliency) as we start to more formally bring together partnerships between academia and municipalities as well as academia and the private sector.  

What advice would you give students who are interested in studying stormwater and coastal resiliency type issues? 

I would encourage them to get a good foundation in environmental and aquatic sciences and to engage as much as possible in collaborative projects that require interdisciplinary work (e.g., working with others in the fields of engineering, communication, urban planning, political and social sciences, business, art, and education). It’s important that we each have our specific disciplinary expertise, but it’s also equally important that we know how to bridge our work with others, not only in academia but also together with the public and private sectors so we can collectively work together to address these grand challenges. If there are opportunities to volunteer for various ongoing projects, take advantage of them. They are important for finding out what types of work are the best fit for your interests and passions. If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to love it. 

It is Earth Month, what advice would you give people who want to get involved in their communities?

I guess I’d reiterate what I said above: take advantage of opportunities that come your way. I’ve found that it’s incredibly rewarding to work in the field and with communities. When I engage in one project, it seems to open up the door for 10 new projects. Also, I’m always amazed at how much collective knowledge resides within our communities-knowledge that can’t just be learned in academia itself but rather comes from a community’s learned experiences and historical knowledge. When we engage with and empower community members – from pre-K to gray- on issues that affect their everyday lives, we can leverage their unique skills and knowledge structures to more effectively identify actionable solutions that address various societal challenges. All small efforts at the community level collectively result in a large impact on our Earth and future, but we’ve all got to act- we’re all part of the solution.