Citation:

Sears, A., L. Jackson, AND T. Wade. Near Road Tree Cover in the Tampa, FL EnviroAtlas Community Area. A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) Conference, Washington, DC, December 08 - 12, 2014.

Impact/Purpose:

To communicate spatial information for informing community sustainability decisions

Description:

Through EnviroAtlas, EPA and its partners seek to effectively measure and communicate the type, quality, and extent of services that humans receive from ecosystems so that their true value can be considered in decision-making. One of the ecosystem services examined in the community component of EnviroAtlas is potential vehicular pollutant buffering by near-road trees. Harmful air pollutants such as airborne particles, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide are found in high concentrations along busy roadways. Tree cover adjacent to busy roadways has been shown to alter concentrations of ultrafine particles and other hazardous air pollutants emitted by traffic. The purpose of this analysis is to quantify and visualize the amount of woody vegetation near roadways, and the population living along heavily-traveled roads for greater Tampa, FL, a US EPA EnviroAtlas pilot community. To create these map layers, land cover was classified from 1-meter resolution aerial photography, and was then used to quantify the amount of tree cover along interstates, arterial roads, and connectors within a focal community. The amount of tree cover within twenty-six meters from the edges of these busy roadways was calculated using a moving window approach. The final products include both a visual representation of the near-road tree cover summarized into five percentage classes, and a summary at the Census block-group scale of the population with and without significant tree buffer. The map layers created in this analysis can be used to assess the extent of buffered roadways across a community and the disparities in benefits between neighborhoods. When overlaid with socio-economic layers available in EnviroAtlas, this map can highlight specific age groups and other populations who are differentially vulnerable to the adverse health effects of near road air pollution. The threshold value and buffer depth in this analysis are based on plausible assumptions and preliminary field studies. Further analysis is necessary to validate and or refute these estimations. As EnviroAtlas grows, a cross-city comparison would further inform the utility of this ecosystem service. Although this material was reviewed and approved by EPA, it does not necessarily reflect official Agency policy.

Record Details: