#GeoNYC April 8th - NYC Parks Presentation

#GeoNYC Meetup
April 8th, 2013
Peter Tiso, NYC Parks Department

Transcript

1. Prioritizing Street Tree Planting Theory & Method Peter Tiso City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation Forestry, Horticulture, and Natural Resources April 8, 2013
2. We plant about 17,000 to 23,000 street trees per year. 2 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
3. That’s about one tree every two minutes during the working day in planting season. 3 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
4. Previous Prioritization (Fall 2007) Exceptionally simple design: • Population Density • Street Tree Stocking Level Plus… 4 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
5. Trees for Public Health Neighborhoods 5 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
6. The simple design fostered community understanding. 6 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
7. As planting progressed, the maps became outdated. 7 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
8. Previous Prioritization 8 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
9. Goals for the new prioritization: • Retain simple common-sense design • Use the then-new 2010 Census data • Include new environmental data • Make use of LiDAR–derived land cover information 9 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
10. Methodology The two-tier system used was developed by the USDA Forest Service. It identifies and combines a range of variables to determine where planting is preferable (tier 1) and where planting is possible (tier 2) The values for each variable are identified to the smallest possible geography, weighted by importance, and standardized to a “Z-score.” 10 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
11. Tier 1 Tier 1 was based on the 2010 Census’ Neighborhood Tabulation Areas (NTAs) and includes the following variables: • Lack of existing tree canopy (from LiDAR) – weighted 5x • High population density – weighted 2x • High airborne particulate Matter (PM2) • High surface temperature (2002 LANDSAT) • Low percentage impervious surface 11 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
13. Tier 2 Tier 2 was based on the 2010 Census tracts and includes the following variables: • Low street tree stocking level – weighted 2x • More tree requests (from 311) • More tree removals 13 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
15. Overall Prioritization Tier 1 and Tier 2 values were averaged in each Census tract to create the overall planting priority. 15 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
17. Field Implementation The prioritization order produced isn’t a hard rule. It simply tells foresters where to look first. The results of this method have been guiding the last several seasons of street tree planting. 17 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
18. SHAMELESS PLUG TIME This image is of the LiDAR point cloud that informs the land cover raster and metrics openly available on NYC Open data at: https://nycopendata.socrata.com/ 18 Prioritizing Street Tree Planting
19. Questions? Peter.Tiso@parks.nyc.gov