Making Urban Trees Count: Quantifying and crediting stormwater benefits
Wednesday, January 10, 2018 | 1:00 – 2:15pm ET
Presenters: Karen Cappiella, Center for Watershed Protection; Justin Hynicka, American Forests
The water quality benefits of forests are widely accepted, yet very few studies have successfully quantified the runoff and pollutant-reducing impacts of trees in the urban landscape. Uncertainty as to how to “credit” urban trees – everything from individual street trees up to small patches of forest – for runoff and pollutant load reduction has hampered their use as a stormwater best management practice (BMP). In this webinar, Karen Cappiella and Justin Hynicka will review the available stormwater crediting systems for urban tree planting and will present a new crediting system that can be integrated into state and local compliance systems for stormwater management, Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), and other water quality requirements. The presenters will share a case study example of how this crediting framework has been formally adopted by state and federal agencies as part of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL, which covers 64,000 square miles across six states and DC.
This project was made possible in part by funding from the USDA Forest Service National Urban and Community Forestry Challenge Cost-Share Grant program. The National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council (NUCFAC) sets the categories for this grant program based on the Ten-Year Urban Forestry Action Plan and recommends to the Forest Service innovative urban and community forestry research and projects that should be considered for funding.
This webinar is open to all. 1.25 CEU with the International Society of Arboriculture.
