Southern Urban and Interface Forests - What's New

In this issue of Leaves of Change, we describe a research study conducted in association with community-based projects in three southern states that are a part of the Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention Program (a collaborative effort between the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, the USDA Forest Service, and the Natural Resource Conservation Service). This study is helping to improve our understanding of African American land ownership and African American participation in sustainable forestry.

The Kids in the Woods partnership was recently awarded the USFS Southern Research Station Director’s Partnership Award in recognition of outstanding and innovative approaches to partnerships with the Kids in the Woods Program at Westwood Middle School in Gainesville, FL. Partners include the USDA Forest Service, University of Florida, Alachua County School District, Gainesville Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Affairs, and Alachua County Environmental Protection Department.

Since its development at Agnes Scott College in 2014, the urban forest sustainability and management review (UFSMR) system continues to evolve and expand.  Updates have been made to reflect use in Raleigh (NC) and Austin (TX), and at U&CF Coordinator meetings in Mobile (AL) and Charleston (SC).  The most recent versions of documents and tools can be found at these links:

• Checklist (PDF)
• Review Tool (Excel)
• Discovery Summary Matrix (PDF)
• Discovery Document List and Summary Matrix (Excel)
• UFSMR Factsheet - One page summary

[23Feb17 Austin]

NC stormwater managers evaluate wetlands in coastal watersheds.  As reported in the Journal of Environmental Quality, "eight storms [were monitored] and showed that the Wade Park Wetland retained and/or removed 50 to 75% of the inflowing volume of runoff. The average load reduction for fecal coliform bacteria was 99%, with an overall concentration reduction of more than 90%".  Additional studies look at wet detention pollution removal rates.

Domains are geodatabase components designed to make GIS editing tasks faster and more accurate ensuring integrity of your database and reliability of all products derived from that data.  Domains also “transfer” to ArcGIS Online (AGOL) providing field data collection (through ESRI Collector) with the same benefits as desktop operations.

This series of Urban Forestry South resources:

• Discuss domains in sufficient detail to illustrate their importance, and describes a workflow using ArcCatalog and ArcToolbox for domain creation, editing, and management. Click to download the PDF
• Provides an example file geodatabase with feature classes, FGDB tables, and domains. Click to download the Zipped FGDB
• An ArcGIS map document that is setup to load and use the FGDB.  Click to download the ArcGIS Map Document
• The Excel spreadsheet that was the basis for the FGDB tables and Coded domains in the example urban forestry FGDB.  Click to download the Excel spreadsheet

Proctor Creek snakes through downtown Atlanta and eventually works its way to the Chattahoochee River. Along the way it passes through both middle and lower income neighborhoods, including some of the most economically depressed areas of the city with high rates of poverty and crime. The waterway is plagued with illegal dumping, pollution, erosion, and high bacteria levels from regular stormwater flooding and sewage overflows. In 2013, Proctor Creek was named one of eleven Urban Waters Federal Partnership Projects, a project that aims to tackle the country’s most polluted city waters and reconnect communities with their waterways. The partnership works to improve coordination and focus among federal agencies on problems in the watershed, as well as promote community-led efforts at economic, social, and ecological revitalization. As a part of the partnership, SRS-4952 is conducting three interconnected studies that will provide valuable information on the links between urban greenspace, ecosystem services, environmental justice, and human health. This issue of Leaves of Change focuses on these three studies and Kids in the Woods outreach activities.

In 2014, Urban Forestry South developed and beta tested a new urban forest sustainability and management audit checklist and process (collectively referred to as an "audit system") at Agnes Scott College, a small woman's liberal arts college in Decatur, GA. Agnes Scott was a great location to try out this new system because it is a Tree Campus USA. This audit system is designed to provide a framework for internal (ad-hoc) audits by program managers or for independent evaluations by an external lead auditor and audit team.

Over 300 arborists attended the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture (MAC-ISA) in Blacksburg, Virginia on October 6th and 7th.  The field day included several ANSI A300 presentations along with insect & disease, safety, soil, and other workshop topics.  Urban Forestry South (Dudley Hartel) presentation material for the workshop and conference include:

• ISA-BMP-Level-I-Field-Worksheet
• Synthesis Pathways for Tree Risk Assessment
• Urban Tree Risk Resources
• Disaster Resources for Urban Foresters
• Arborists and Disaster Preparedness - The Professional's Role

The Urban Forest Strike Team (UFST) program was developed by state forestry agencies and the U.S. Forest Service in the Southern Region (Region 8) and is now being implemented in the northeastern and midwestern states (USDA FS Region 9, NA) with their partner the Massachusetts Tree Wardens & Foresters Association. Urban Forest Strike Teams provide professional recovery services to communities following ice storms, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. The UFST process includes recruiting, training, and deploying professional urban foresters and arborists to assess tree damage using FEMA guidelines and tree risk assessment standards.

Recently, the Arkansas Forestry Commission published their UFST resources into the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC), and the Virginia Department of Forestry is completing that process now.

On June 16th, the American Planning Association, International Society of Arboriculture, Utility Arborists, and USDA Forest Service (lead by the Northeaster Area) held a scoping session with FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, USDA disaster recovery directors, and others to discuss the management of trees an urban forests following natural disasters.

During the week of September 22nd, UFST team leaders, task specialists, workshop trainees and instructors conducted a mock disaster exercise in conjunction with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (Dick Stokes, EMAC), the Georgia Forestry Commission (Susan Granbery), the Savannah Emergency Manager (Dan Stowers), and the City of Savannah arborist division (Jerry Fleming).

We introduced two new technologies to the participants in this 2 day exercise.  First, for most, was an introduction to ANSI A300 Part 9 level 1 risk assessment into our established UFST tree risk assessment protocol.

And second, with the assistance of the Georgia Forestry Commission (Charles Bailey), we tested the feasibility of using ArcGIS Online (AGOL) for UFST tree assessments.  Five exercise participants used a variety of smartdevices (iPad, Samsung Galaxy & Note smartphone, and Panasonic Toughpad to collect several hours of data.  This test was a good real-world experience and gave us very promising results in terms of ease of use and data accuracy using GPS or digitizing in the field.

We will continue to test useability and accuracy over the next few weeks with hopes of a full scale UFST test at the Fayetteville (AK) mock exercise in late November.

In this issue of Leaves of Change you will learn about a project that engages 6th grade students from Westwood Middle School in Gainesville, Florida, in outdoor science learning activities in the nearby Loblolly Woods Nature Park. Spurred on by a grant from the US Forest Service’s More Kids in the Woods initiative, the school project kicked off in the fall of 2013. Through this project, students are learning outdoors while also gaining first-hand experience with the scientific method—developing hypotheses, collecting data, doing analysis, and drawing conclusions. Some of the main objectives of the project are for students to become more aware and connected to their local environment and exposed to careers in science and natural resources, as well as increased teacher participation in providing outdoor learning experiences for students. Over three hundred sixth graders and three science teachers are participating in the project this year.

Click here to learn more about this project highlighted in our latest issue of Leaves of Change.