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A Report on Cortland's Urban Forest
This report was written by the City of Cortland Landscape and Design Commission to assess the state of the city’s urban forest.
"A tree survey was conducted and sponsored by the Landscape & Design Commission during the September and October of 2004 and 2005. Data were collected on 2,469 trees in the right-of-way of city streets and 680 trees in municipal parks. The average number of street trees per capita (0.13 trees per person) for Cortland falls well short of national averages (0.37) from 22 cities. Although 52 species were encountered, 43% of these public trees belong to one of six maple species (Acer). Ideally, no single tree species should occur in more than 10% of the forest and no genus represented in the forest at more than 20%. Norway (15.8%) and sugar (15.1) maples are two dominate species with an aging demographic distribution and experiencing significant health problems within the Central NY region. Despite additional tree recruitment sponsored by the tree lottery, the city is currently removing nearly as many old trees as are planted on an annual basis. Even though limited city funds are invested in public trees, the city continues to benefit from the environmental services (air quality improvement, storm water mitigation, reduced energy use, property value, and carbon storage) total more than $388,000. The high benefit-to-cost ratio of $10.2 and $15,000,000 replacement value for current public trees demands that city develop a coherent, tenable plan for protecting the long term health of this investment." [Abstract, page 2] 18 pages. 8.5" x 11"
S.B. Broyles
April 2008
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Information/Research Summary
Other
Local (Municipal)
Evaluation/Assessment, Urban Forest Management, Inventory (tree)
New York
MW: F-PRNT-NY-08-001
MWCU&CF
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