Initiatives

Post-Fire Restoration and Recovery Manual for Western Urban Forests

With recent increases in wildfire-driven events affecting urban communities, there is a need to develop a science-based online manual that provides information and guidelines for assessing and restoring urban and community forests affected by fire events. This DRAFT manual and its associated online components provide a guide to the management, planning and policies for restoring urban forests in fire-affected communities. Information consists of a review of the relevant literature, case studies of urban wildfires in the western United States, including lessons learned, and listings of resources available for both public official and homeowners.  This DRAFT guide is intended for public officials, including professionals and elected individuals as well as Homeowners, and Homeowner Associations. The guide in still in DRAFT form but has three goals:

1. 1. To provide an overview of information and guidelines related to the practice of urban tree management – arboriculture and urban forestry – in post-fire affected communities in more urban and populated settings.  Most of the material refers to the issues, actions, and considerations after a fire has occurred.  The emphasis is on directing readers to existing sources of information when possible; not recreating that same information.
   2. To provide an overview and sequence of steps and processes that can be used to assess, plan and manage for urban tree canopy before, during, and after an urban fire.  Some of the processes/actions are sequential while others occur during different steps in the planning-management cycle or might be dependent on pre- fire planning as well as resources and existing information.
   3. To provide references, information sources, and links that can provide background information on issues covered in this guide as well as on more general topics in arboriculture and urban forest management that are useful in a post-fire situation.  It will also present a suite of tree planting, flammability, and design guidelines for restoring fire affected urban forests and landscapes.

The Post-Fire Restoration and Recovery Manual for Western Urban Forests Draft can also be viewed via clicking the image below.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Alessandro Ossola (University of California, Davis)

School Tree Study: Evaluating tree benefits and care in California schoolyards for climate resilience

Trees on K-12 school campuses can improve quality of life for students by providing shade and reducing temperature in outdoor areas. In California, school grounds often primarily consist of impervious surfaces, such as asphalt, which can absorb and re-radiate heat, thereby raising local temperatures and decreasing thermal comfort. Policymakers, funders, and advocates increasingly recognize the importance of trees and other vegetation in schoolyards to support the social, physical, and emotional well-being of children, and also provide rich outdoor learning environments.

To achieve these benefits, trees need to survive and grow to maturity. Urban tree systems are vulnerable to a variety of stressors, including extreme heat, and sustained tree health requires maintenance over time. It is important to identify strategies for landscape maintenance from the perspectives of principals, teachers, facilities staff, and parents, with particular attention to issues of engagement, collaboration, and labor.

This project consists of several interlocking objectives: 1) Investigate policies that have created and reinforce extensive impervious cover on school grounds, and describe land cover patterns on school campuses; 2) Assess tree microclimate benefits, and develop future scenarios for such benefits based on varying tree configurations; 3) Assess the vulnerability of campus tree species to climate change; and 4) Characterize landscape management perspectives and needs from school principals, teachers, and parents, as well as facilities staff at school and district levels, and nonprofit greening partners. This project will be carried out in collaboration with researchers from UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and the USDA Forest Service, and colleagues from CAL FIRE and Green Schoolyards Americas.

The first product is a StoryMap called “Transforming California School Grounds from Gray to Green”, you may also click the image below to view the StoryMap.

Established in 2020, LA’s UFEC brings together a team of researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and community-based organizations to create a holistic analysis and implementation plan to advance urban forest in LA’s lowest-canopied neighborhoods, addressing decades of systemic disinvestment that have resulted in poor public health outcomes, limited access to green spaces, and a host of related consequences ranging from heat exposure and poor air quality, to food insecurity and reduced ecosystem services. Outcomes of this project will include a street-by-street classification of LA’s potential tree canopy in two pilot neighborhoods, applying the “tiered model” presented in Phase I of the UFE Visiting Scholar project, ranging from readily plantable to more difficult planting scenarios. This classification will be used to create neighborhood-level implementation plans that include costs and benefits of realizing the varied planting tiers, engage partnering community organizations in addressing barriers to deployment, and identify policy and funding pathways to ensure implementation. Connections to related efforts will be explored and forged, including to LA’s Urban Forest Management Plan, setting the course for the future of LA’s urban forest for years to come. This project will create a replicable framework that can be used regionally and beyond Los Angeles, and it will culminate with a demonstration of planting and increasing tree canopy in target neighborhoods following the tiered approach.

Los Angeles County Tree Canopy Viewer

The Angeles County Tree Canopy Viewer displays a high-resolution assessment of LA County’s existing and potential tree canopy cover. Fine scale 8-class land cover was combined with data from CalEnviroScreen, demographic, and urban heat data to assess existing conditions and identify potential priority areas where enhanced urban greening could contribute to climate resilience, environmental enhancement, and public health improvement. More detailed maps, including multiple land cover types, can be found from the Los Angeles County Tree Canopy Advanced Viewer. A Story Map is available for more information about this project. TreePeople and the Center for Urban Resilience (CURes) at Loyola Marymount University developed the viewer through a grant funded by US Forest Service and CALFIRE. The Consulting Group at SavATree and the University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab supported analysis of spatial distribution of green infrastructure in Los Angeles. The map viewers are developed by Dr. Shenyue Jia at the Center of Excellence in Earth Systems Modeling and Observations (CEESMO), Chapman University.