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Study Promotes Trees as Green Infrastructure to Address Rising Stormwater Challenges
The Harrisonburg, Virginia, urban forestry program has found new momentum. In 2017, the city had just lost Tree City USA status, which it had held for the previous 13 years, due to the loss of staff and program funding. In addition, emerald ash borer had arrived in the city and was decimating city streets and parks , which were overstocked with ash trees.Then, a couple of things occurred that brought new energy and impetus to the urban forestry program. First, the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load program, a comprehensive "pollution diet" to restore clean water in the Chesapeake Bay and the region's waterways, began giving credits for planting urban trees to mitigate stormwater runoff. This allowed the city to plant trees in place of having to purchase more expensive nutrient credits to meet state-mandated goals for reducing pollution from runoff. Second, the city participated in the Trees to Offset Stormwater study, which was funded by a Landscape Scale Restoration Program grant from the Southern Region of the U.S. Forest Service and implemented by the nonprofit Green Infrastructure Center Inc.
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Putting Numbers to Stormwater and Co-Benefits of Atlanta's Urban Forest
In Atlanta, affectionately known as the “city in the forest,” tree canopy covers a little over 47 percent of the land within the city limits. Guided by the Green Infrastructure Strategic Action Plan adopted in 2017, Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management is advancing green infrastructure (GI) to strengthen the resilience of the city’s watersheds and communities in the face of rapid growth and climate change. The strategic plan quantifies new GI tree planting based on research studies, but to advance the plan, the city needed a method to similarly quantify the value of existing forests. In 2018, Atlanta partnered with the USDA Forest Service to evaluate the benefits that the city’s urban forest provides: stormwater control, energy conservation, air pollution removal, and carbon sequestration.
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New Urban and Community Forestry Manual for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
This second edition of the Manual de forestación urbana para Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes Americanas presents recent and comprehensive data on how to correctly address and manage situations related to landscapes and urban forestry in communities in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Developed by the University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez, it contains information about the benefits and stewardship of urban forests, biology of trees and plants, applicable regulations and permits, evaluation of species for site selection, design and urbanism, preparation of urban forests for natural disasters, and more.
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Trees and Stormwater Resources on Urban Forestry South
The Urban Forestry South website maintains current content related to urban forests and green stormwater infrastructure. You can access resources related to landscape scale green infrastructure, related research, tools to calculate stormwater benefits of urban trees, webinars, presentations, videos, and more.
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New Faces in State Urban & Community Forestry
We have several new people that have joined State urban and community forestry programs across the South over the last few months. Learn more about them here.
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Urban Forest Systems and Green Stormwater Infrastructure
This USDA Forest Service report focuses on the effects of trees on urban stormwater runoff, provides some helpful urban forest management strategies to maximize stormwater benefits, and demonstrates several examples around the US where stormwater benefits of urban trees are credited for reducing stormwater volume and pollutant loading.
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Magaly Zayas retires from the Forest Service
Magaly Zayas retired January 31st, 2020, after 28 years with the US Forest Service. Magaly is well known to the arborist community across the Southeast and around the world. She will continue to serve on the ISA Hispanic committee and in other service opportunities. As she has assured her colleagues that she is “retiring, but not withdrawing!”
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