A Plan to Integrate Management of Urban Trees into Air Quality Planning

This plan was developed by members of the Davey Resource Group, the New YorkState Department of Environmental Conservation, and the USDA Forest Service'sNortheastern Research Station (Syracuse, New York). Funding was provided by a grantfrom the USDA Forest Service through the North East State Foresters Association.The objective of the study is to provide technical evaluation, documentation, andgeneral programmatic information on the strategy for the increase of urban tree cover as ameans to improve air quality. The study used the urbanized area of New York City as anexample, and identifies the following points:· A study domain of 12,896 km2 was established around the New York City ozonenon-attainment area.· Land use and cover data were determined through photo interpretation of digitalorthoquad photographs in conjunction with multi-resolution land cover (MLRC)consortium data.· Available surface area for additional tree planting in the urban areas of the studydomain was determined to be about 1628 km2.· A base case scenario was developed for the urban cells with the meteorologicalmodel MM5 and photochemical model MODELS-3/CMAQ for July 12-15, 1995, todetermine the effect of three levels of canopy increase in air quality: base case(existing level), reasonable (base + 10%), and maximum (base + 32%).7· For both 10% and 30% increase in canopy, the model predicted a maximumdomain-wide drop of about 4 ppb of ozone (132 ppb to 128 ppb) for that period.However, the areal extent of improvement is found to be dependent upon the extentof increase in the canopy cover.· A review of the EPA policy memorandum on voluntary source emission reductionprograms suggests that the strategy of increasing canopy cover to reduce ozonecould be adopted, provided some variances to the current policy are accepted.· Canopy increase can be promoted through a variety of approaches, including:o New tree plantingo Augmenting growth of existing canopyo Reducing canopy mortality or losso Education, public relations, and other indirect programs· Each of the above approaches supports multiple programs that are outlined here inbroad terms. Evaluation of these approaches and selection of programs to increasecanopy cover and reduce air pollutants within each approach remains the task ofindividual States as they develop their plans to meet and maintain the NationalAmbient Air Quality Levels.

Keywords: Air Quality

Pages: 65

Publisher: Davey Resource Group

Category: Reports

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