DescriptionThe Meadowlands are a large brackish estuarine complex located in northern New Jersey. The area is located just 6 miles from Manhattan and currently contains about 8,400 acres of open, undeveloped space that is surrounded on all sides by a dense urban environment. Centuries of anthropogenic disturbance of natural areas has resulted in the entirety of the Meadowlands transitioning into a novel ecosystem. The intent of this thesis is to understand how the Meadowlands arrived at its current state and what the future hold for the area. This is done through an investigation of the large scale and transformative changes that have occurred in this wetland area. Special attention is paid to human influence and landscape modification that has occurred throughout the Meadowlands. A design for an urban wetland park is then proposed. The proposed site planning, restoration and management methods are justified based on the analysis performed earlier in the thesis. The proposed park embraces the novel ecology of the Meadowlands and harnesses the dynamism of the Meadowlands to create a sustainable and resilient wetland park. The park proposal is made up of a “tool kit” of restoration and design interventions that has the potential to be implemented throughout the Meadowlands to solve many existing issues posed by sea level rise, storm flooding, habitat loss and fragmentation, and limited access to nature in the surrounding urban environment.