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Understanding and modeling urban forest inequity

Urban forests provide a variety of ecosystem services that influence environmental and social welfare, but variable distribution of urban tree canopy (UTC) within and among urban areas can lead to inequitable provisioning of these benefits. This project aimed to better understand how UTC inequity varies within and across cities and develop new tools and maps focused on identifying communities underserved by urban forest green infrastructure, evaluating resilience under future scenarios, and optimizing management strategies to mitigate disparities and risks. The outcomes of this project provide urban managers/planners across the country a toolset to identify underserved communities and optimize investments focused on mitigating current conditions and future risks.

This project was supported by a grant from the USDA Forest Service National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council (15-DG-11132544-035) to The Center for Tree Science at The Morton Arboretum