Urban Tree Health in Socially Vulnerable Neighborhoods in the Southeast: An Ecological and Economic Assessment
Project Information
Principal Investigator: Meredith Martin (Department of Forestry & Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University)
Project Start: August 2024
Proposed Project Completion: July 2027
Implements Science Plan Theme: Impacts
Co-Investigators: Justin Baker (North Carolina State University)
Jennifer Richmond-Bryant (North Carolina State University)
Cooperator/Partner(s): Ginell Roger (TreesDurham)
Tania Dautlick (Keep Durham Beautiful)
Daniel Hickey (City of Durham)
Leslie Moorman (North Carolina Urban Forestry Council (NCUFC))
Skip Kincaid (International Society of Arboriculture, Southern Chapter)
Overview:
Urban forests provide valuable ecosystem services such as mitigating air pollution, moderating temperature, and sequestering carbon. As climate change creates warmer conditions across the southeastern US, maintaining these valuable services will require keeping urban tree canopies healthy. However, urban forest managers in the region lack essential information for making decisions about tree plantings, selecting species, and tree maintenance.
This project will help managers maximize the impacts of tree planting for climate change mitigation at two spatial scales:
- A local assessment of the urban canopy in Durham, NC, that will focus on historically marginalized neighborhoods and socially vulnerable communities, and
- A synthesis of urban canopies and future climate change conditions in municipalities more broadly across the entire southeastern US. In Durham, researchers will examine species patterns of urban tree mortality and health to provide actionable management information about which species are thriving and where maintenance efforts may be most effective. The project will also model the ecological and economic costs and benefits of tree planting and management to help decision-makers maximize the benefits of their efforts.
Overall, the project will provide baseline information about the dominant species of urban forest canopies and will identify critical information gaps for future management at the state and municipal levels. Resulting information about which tree species should be proactively planted to maximize climate adaptations can be used by urban forest managers across the region.