Research Opportunities in the Natural and Social Sciences at the Jamaica Bay Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area

Waldman, John

The Gateway National Recreation Area (Gateway NRA), designated in 1972, is one of the first urban national parks. One of its primary components is the Jamaica Bay Unit. Jamaica Bay is a large water body that drains portions of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau counties of New York and discharges to the Atlantic Ocean through Rockaway Inlet. The Jamaica Bay Unit is approximately 6,500 hectares (16,000 acres) in area, about 75% water and wetlands and 25% uplands. Although Jamaica Bay is natural, it is located within a heavily populated region and portions of it have received considerable modification by humans. Nonetheless, Jamaica Bay is one of the largest areas of open space within New York City; a significant natural area within one of the nation’s most populous urban centers. This abutment of wild habitat and natural resources with urbanity makes management of Jamaica Bay complicated. More than 25 federal, state, and local agencies have some jurisdictional responsibilities in the bay, and numerous private and public entities have strong ties to it. However, the National Park Service has a uniquely broad purview of the Unit portion of Jamaica Bay. This is part of a larger mission for Gateway NRA that maintains, improves, and makes its resources available to the public for inspiration, education, and recreation. These include sites of critical natural and cultural importance to the maintenance and sustainability of local ecosystems, to the life of migratory and native species, and to the military, navigational, and aviation history of the region and the nation, especially in the context of the coastal defense of New York Harbor. Strengthened environmental regulations and concerned citizens have greatly improved conditions in Jamaica Bay and, today, the bay can serve as a model for how the degraded resources of an urban water body can be rehabilitated. However, the bay is dynamic and not all of its changes are positive, most alarmingly, the trend towards disappearance of its salt marsh islands (Hartig et al. 2002). Nor are all aspects of its environment as well understood as they should be to best manage the bay. To help steer further scientific inquiry into this complex, stressed, but resilient ecosystem, creation of a research opportunities catalog was proposed, as have been developed for other National Parks. This research catalog for the Jamaica Bay Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area has two main objectives: Research Opportunities catalog will identify research needs that will directly assist park management in their efforts to better understand the park’s natural resources and support resource protection actions. A Research Opportunities document will identify opportunities to study species, habitats, processes, and ecological principles within an urban setting: and the connections the metropolitan community has to these resources. Thus, we hope that this catalog of research opportunities for the Jamaica Bay Unit of Gateway NRA will highlight the availability of this site as a potentially world-class laboratory for research on the wildlife and environment of an urban park and, that it will focus scientific study on questions that will help maintain and perpetuate the bay’s environmental recovery so that it can continue in its role as a superb urban wildlife amenity. It is intended that this catalog be updated on a periodic basis.