Areas of Focus
Innovating and Adapting
By enabling connections and shared projects across disciplines, we commit to create new knowledge, inform policy-making and inspire action in four interrelated areas with a focus on our peri-urban location:
- Food systems innovation
- Water resources stewardship and development
- Energy
- Environmental adaptation
As we address these areas, we’ll draw on deep faculty expertise available at NIU and among our partner institutions across the state, while also building new expertise in related areas.
Food Systems Innovation
Environmentally focused shifts are happening on multiple fronts in American agriculture, and in northern Illinois we have a front-row seat to these changes. While small, niche organic farms are springing up in more and more places, we can’t ignore the continued importance of large-scale farming – which feeds most of the world and has a massive environmental impact. We’re committed to transformative research that has the power to positively impact the land, people and economy.
Restoring the Prairie State
Illinois is the Prairie State, but we’ve lost 99.9% of our prairie. Prairie restoration – and restoration of other native landscapes – has the potential to increase biological diversity, improve water quality, decrease the need for irrigation and reduce erosion. At NICCS, we have a rich portfolio of new and long-running prairie restoration experiments – some of them complete with bison!
Water Resources Stewardship and Development
Water is central to the environmental, economic and equity issues humans face today. Our peri-urban location permits NICCS to examine water use and conservation in suburban, industrial and agricultural contexts – reflecting the realities of how Americans live today - so our work can have immediate practical and policy implications.
Energy
The energy landscape is changing quickly, and opportunities to increase efficiency and change methods for powering everyday life provide pathways for stronger communities. NIU scientists and creators are conducting groundbreaking research and engaging in partnerships to develop technological advances ranging from the nanoscale to the industrial scale, new applications for critical minerals, and improvements in building systems management to save money and reduce our carbon footprint. NICCS is emerging as a leader in bringing sustainable approaches to energy challenges in our region.
Environmental Change Adaptation
What does climate change look like in the Midwest, and how can humans and other organisms adapt? Rising temperatures, drought, heavy downpours, extreme weather events, soil erosion and disruptions to agricultural productivity will be increasingly common. Economic and environmental impacts are combining to threaten rural livelihoods, sustainable food systems and agricultural price stability. At NICCS, we’re ready to examine these problems clearly and deeply and to bring the full weight of our expertise to bear on policy and technology solutions.
Reckoning with the Past. Preparing for the Future.
We’re looking for new ways to balance ecological restoration with residential, agricultural and industrial land use – recognizing and reckoning with the ways that people really live and use the land today. Our teams are conducting research with practical applications to help us understand and address the history of land use in northern Illinois and much of the U.S.
Contact Us
Matthew Deitch, Ph.D.
Director, Northern Illinois Center for Community Sustainability
mdeitch@niu.edu