California’s interactive tree viewer has been updated with 2018 canopy data! Its purpose is to help capture community services from trees. Understanding the extent and location of its existing tree canopy can help a community design and implement sound management practices to maximize those services: prioritizing locations for tree planting, establishing urban forestry master plans and sustainability plans, and managing threats to canopy loss. The map viewer also highlights population and environmental characteristics (e.g. air pollution and urban heat island) that can help identify communities disproportionately burdened by risks that urban tree cover may help ameliorate. Practitioners that are interested in the data for their own maps can download the GIS data directly from our site as well.
The tree canopy layer was created by EarthDefine, under contract with the USDA Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFIRE). The layers of population and environmental characteristics were derived from CalEnviroScreen 3.0 (Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment), and calculations of the Urban Heat Island Index are from the California Environmental Protection Agency.
USFS State and Private Forestry are partnering with CALFIRE, UC Davis, and USFS Pacific Southwest Region to quantify ecosystem services from the new canopy data like we did with the 2012 data. Stay tuned!
Links for the products:
· Map viewer info page (link from the Region 5 UCF homepage): https://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/r5/communityforests/?cid=fseprd647442&width=full
· Map viewer: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd645759.html· Downloadable Urban Tree Canopy Data: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r5/communityforests/?cid=fseprd647385