Tree Canopy Assessment
Client
Loyola Marymount University, Center for Urban Resilience
Project
Urban tree canopy assessment and prioritization
Location
Coastal areas, Los Angeles, California
The Issue
The LMU Center for Urban Resilience focuses on urban ecology research and community solutions. It works to develop research and other interventions that lead to more resilient and just communities. LMU CUResasked the SavATree Consulting Group to look at existing and potential tree canopy in the study area and to relate it to coastal resilience, urban heat island effects, and environmental equity.
Desired Outcome
The desired outcome was to see if tree cover in the study area was distributed equitably and adequately for environmental and human health benefits.
Our Solution
Our approach, with our alliance partners the University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab and Clarke University doctoral student Dexter Locke, included the following:
- Mashing up LiDAR and high resolution imagery to produce a high resolution, 7-class land cover map of the study area;
- Quantifying existing and potential tree canopy;
- Mashing up the resulting high resolution land cover data with various geographies of interest;
- Correlating the land cover data to surface temperature data; and,
- Correlating these data with various demographic and marketing data to look at relationships between tree cover, temperature, and people.
We presented our findings at an open meeting at LMU CUREs. We turned over all data and shared information regarding with other researchers there in hopes it will help them ask new questions and find new answers.
