Making Urban Trees Count: A Project to Demonstrate the Role of Urban Trees in Achieving Regulatory Compliance for Clean Water (C3-NA-3)

The Center for Watershed Protection will develop a model design specification for urban tree planting for stormwater management that is based on science and collaboration with experts in the field of urban forestry, ecology, and stormwater management.

Stormwater managers need cost-effective practices to meet Clean Water Act permit requirements and improve water quality. The use of trees as a BMP is hampered by the uncertainty of how to “credit” trees for runoff and pollutant load reduction in order to compare with other BMPs. Quantified tree benefits are not accessible to the stormwater community, limiting the potential to use them for pollutant removal credits. The Center for Watershed Protection will address this challenge by developing a model design specification for urban tree planting that addresses crediting, verification, cost-effectiveness, and tree health. The expected outcome is incorporation of the specification into stormwater manuals and greater use of tree planting for MS4 compliance.

The Center will conduct a comprehensive literature review, apply a tree planting credit and verification system in Washington, DC, and evaluate the influence of leaf litter on stormwater pollution in partnerships with the District of Columbia Department of the Environment and the University of Maryland. A collaboration of a panel of experts will review these results and make recommendations to inform the model design specification. The Center will transfer the project results through its network of watershed and stormwater professionals in a targeted, national dissemination effort.

Final Report Download

Click here to download this proposal as a PDF.