Program History

Over the last 300 years, the environment of Central Massachusetts (CM) has experienced dynamic transition through five politico-economic states: Neolithic gathering, colonial extraction, American agrarian, industrial, and post-industrial/service. In the mid 19th century, CM was the early focus of the North American industrial revolution. For now, it is witnessing a transition into a service and high-tech economy, focused on computing and software (New England’s Silicon Valley), medical, and research-oriented industries. Such changes have been accompanied by significant population growth, giving rise to dichotomous classes of occupants: a large and well-to-do professional class that is juxtaposed to an aging working class and large influx of immigrant populations. The region is clustered with small- to medium sized cities and densely settled peri-urban communities interspersed with large patches of woodlands and remnants of the former expansive farms. The southern and eastern portions of CM capture parts of the eastern seaboard "megalopolis", complete with their dense occupation of commuters. The northern and western portions, in contrast, contain farmlands, private and public forests, Boston’s massive Quabbin Reservoir, and many recreational land uses, including the ski industry.

The history of CM lends itself to a study of changing human-environment relationships: human causes, environmental consequences, and human responses. The current relationships are affected by the older ones, such as woodlands adapted to human interference and numerous "brownfields" affecting land use and groundwater, promoting an understanding of long-term environmental feedbacks on current processes, in which accumulative environmental changes themselves become drivers of land use and greenhouse gas emissions. These changing conditions, added to those of crowding, watershed protection, and local environmental concerns, often lead to strict land zoning policies.

This rationale for a Human-Environment Regional Observatory (HERO) is matched by the special data sources accumulated in Central Massachusetts over time. A number of well-known research institutions in CM gather historical and environmental data and information on the human-environment relationships of the region.  American Antiquarian Society houses the most extensive early American archival records in the country. This long-term political and social documentation is matched by that of terrestrial ecology and land-cover data accumulated at the Harvard Forest, a Long-Term Ecological Research site (LTER) devoted to human-disturbed landscapes. Additionally, researchers at the George Perkins Marsh Institute of Clark University include experts in economic and urban geography, risk-hazard, industrial ecology and land-use research. With funding from the Culpeper and Keck Foundations, a new Clark’s CoFERT laboratory for high end computing, data management, and GIS analyses, with its own research vehicle, has been established to push forward a small-scale, Worcester County "HERO."  The Project actively uses the CoFERT lab's resources.

Given this historical context of the region and its current economical trends, as well as the region’s rich research infrastructure, CM offers potential insights into long-term, dynamic human-environment relationships and their change over time. To benefit from these unique opportunities, the Human-Environment Regional Observatory for Central Massachusetts (now known as the HERO-CM Project) was initiated in the summer of 1999 by Clark University’s George Perkins Marsh Institute with funds provided by the Culpepper Foundation.

The HERO-CM Project initially set out to pursue the following objectives:

• To establish an undergraduate-directed, digital data archive (focused on spatially explicit data) on the human-environment conditions in Central Massachusetts;

• To use this data archive for faculty-undergraduate linked researches on various themes related to human-environment relationships;

• To enhance the undergraduate experience as well as create a valued asset to the larger research community;

• To make the archive a public source of information.

In 2000 the Clark initiative was folded into a larger, multi-site research effort funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), housed at Penn State University.  This research project has ended, but Clark's HERO activities are continuing, under new funding from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Henry David Thoreau Foundation.  This article provides more detail on the scholarly and pedagogic achievements of the Clark HERO program.

 effort in which it currently resides.

Click here for a graphic presentation of the history of HERO-CM project.