Sustainability Metrics

Urban Forestry sustainability metrics include green building and tree protection, accessibility to open space and parks, trees, storm water management, irrigation control and use of appropriate regional vegetation.

The West Coast city of Santa Monica, Calif. has a sustainable urban forestry goal to develop and maintain a sufficient open space for wildlife and an equitable distribution of parks, trees and pathways. The key to a successful urban forest is ample public open space, supplemented by private woodlands. Tax incentives are one means to allow land along streams, on steep slopes and in other sensitive environmental areas to remain undeveloped.

Santa Monica measures the percent of tree canopy coverage by neighborhood and by land use. Officials measure the percent of newly planted and total number of trees that meet defined sustainability criteria. The city seeks to reach at least 18 percent tree canopy coverage within residential areas and 25 percent canopy coverage in commercial areas. Santa Monica measures the percent of tree canopy coverage by neighborhood and by land use, an inventory essential to understand the composition and management needs of the urban forest. The community landscape code, Part 9.04.10.04 is a second measure of urban forestry sustainability and an important tool for creating a sustainable landscape.

A third measure of urban forestry sustainability in Santa Monica is water, including storm water management, water harvesting and irrigation control. Water in a community is directly tied to urban forestry in obvious ways. Pure water and its sustainability is immediately recognized as important by everyone. However, pure oxygen, produced by the urban forest, is not. To make the case for sustainable tree ordinances, water needs and design practices need to be brought into most community tree ordinances (LEED For Neighborhood Development Rating System, U S Green Building Council, Washington, D.C. 2007.)

Tree ordinances have not been written to promote urban forest sustainability, but the seeds of this program have been sown in places like New York City, Atlanta, Charleston, San Antonio, Orlando and Chicago, as well as Volusia County, Florida and Mathews, North Carolina. Talk about sustainability?EUR??,,????'?????<

Water harvesting is, of course, the collection, storage and reuse of rainfall. Communities that need all of the water they can harvest will capture water on site by establishing a ?EUR??,,????'?????<

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Rain water and spill water eventually finds its way to SMURRF (ed. No, not the cute little blue creatures.), the city?EUR??,,????'?????<

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Downtown Santa Monica. To make the case for sustainable tree ordinances, water needs and design practices need to be brought into most community tree ordinances.

Tree Ordinance Sustainability Issues

Traditional tree ordinance provisions as described by Wolf, Swiecki, McPherson Abbey (1998) and Hoefer-Himelick-DeVoto and others describe that most tree ordinances written prior to the year 2000 were written for several basic purposes: ordinances to manage public trees; provide for street tree plantings; successful tree planting and maintenance; tree removal restrictions; landscaping; and to organize community forestry programs. Occasionally a tree ordinance was written for some local special purpose such as view shed protection, designating landmark trees, or to initiate an annual arbor day programs; others were written to regulate licensing and arboricultural services.

Tree ordinances have not been written to promote urban forest sustainability, but the seeds of this program have been sown in places like New York City, Atlanta, Charleston, San Antonio, Orlando and Chicago, as well as Volusia County, Florida and Mathews, North Carolina.

Some of these newer ordinances can be casually referred to as ?EUR??,,????'?????<

Wolf also has written about sustainability strategies particularly in regards to parking lots that offer opportunities to do environmental work in the city (Wolf, K. Trees, Parking and Green Law: Strategies for Sustainability, University of Washington & Georgia Forestry Commission, 2004). For some time now visionary communities such as Broward and Collier Counties in Florida, Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill in North Carolina, Mandeville and Covington in Louisiana and Southlake, Denton and Conroe, Texas understand that the urban forest and green infrastructure of a community is indeed one of the sustainable elements of a green community. Forsythe, Gwinnett and Fulton County Georgia also understand this.

San Antonio, Texas recently amended their zoning code and in the statement of purpose mentions eight sustainable practices expected as a result of compliance with the tree ordinance. They mention for instance tree preservation, water conservation, air cleansing, heat island reduction, native vegetation protection and drought tolerant design.

Sustainable Urban Forests

Olmsted recognized urban forest sustainability in the 1850s, noting the London parks seemed to be the ?EUR??,,????'?????<

With the development of sophisticated forestry departments, computerized tree analysis programs and advances in urban forestry research a new era of municipal tree law is on the horizon. This new era of super tree laws beckons sustainability to further preserve urban forests. Sustainability based tree ordinances will continue all of the important environmental assistance that a well-treed town can provide to its citizens. It is time that all communities realize that tree ordinances, landscape codes and land development regulations must be modernized to include sustainability criteria.

D.G. ?EUR??,,????'?????<

About the author:

LASN associate editor D.G. ?EUR??,,????'?????<www.greenlaws.lsu.edu at LSU that is a resource for those writing landscape codes, tree preservation laws and land development codes.

Editor?EUR??,,????'?????<www.landscapeonline.com/research/article/10689.