Replanting Durham's Urban Forest
Abstract
Urban forests are the trees found within city limits along streets, in parks, and
in backyards. This urban forest offers many ecosystem services that range from stormwater
control to climate change mitigation. In the context of the City of Durham, this urban
resource is being rapidly depleted due to the senescence of its mature oak canopy
and threats from invasive tree pests. In order to combat this loss, the City was projected
to need 1,600 new trees planted every year. The scope of this project sought to understand
the present state of the urban forest by examining the current canopy through a historical
lens. Historical planting efforts shed light on why and where trees are and are not
located. Assessments of recent plantings, current canopy cover, and extent of invasive
species in parks will offer insight for the management of the urban forest. The resulting
analysis will guide the City of Durham to determine ideal planting sites for new trees
to maximize environmental and social benefits with a recommendation for policy change
in the existing planting procedure.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11899Citation
Cooper, Gregory; Liberti, Anne; & Asch, Michael (2016). Replanting Durham's Urban Forest. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11899.Collections
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