Quantifying urban forest structure, functioning and economic value in a small, expanding southern metropolis.

Art Chappelka, Professor

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An urban forest can be defined as the sum total of all vegetation growing inanurban metropolis. Some of these forested areas may have been intentionally planted along streets or around building structures. Also, many trees whether planted or natural are in landscapes such as parks, golf courses and yards.  Other forested areas have been left over from small tracts of land preserved during development or left unattended. When buildings and other structures are included in the urban forest matrix, a complex ecosystem exists. Initially, urban forests were mainlyrecognized and managed for aesthetics. It is now known, however that these ecosystems serve many essential functions including pollution removal, carbon storage, erosion control, energy  savings and other vital ecosystem services.  Quantifying these functions and determining the compensatory values of these forests is essential to their management (vertical structure, density, species composition, etc.) and provides city officials with needed information regarding the planning and budgetary ($ for maintenance, tree removal, planting, etc.) process and development of protection measures (such as tree ordinances, etc.). There has been some research in this field of research, however, the vast majority has occurred in large metropolitan city primarily in the North-Central and Northeastern US. We (Art Chappelka & Ed Loewenstein Investigators, SFWS) have developed a project to quantify the structure function and economic value of the urban forest in a small, rapidly expanding urban metropolis (Auburn, Alabama) in the southern United States. The specific objectives are 1) Analysis of structural components, including species composition and distribution patterns in the urban forest; 2) Estimation of carbon storage and air pollution removal by the forest and comparison among forest types; and 3) Development of new algorithms for Urban Forest Effects (UFORE) model specifically for local southern vegetation. Funding is partially provided through the USDA McStennis program. In addition, a graduate student: Ann Huyler (PhD) is conducting research on different aspects of this project.