Is Planting Equitable? An Examination of the Spatial Distribution of Nonprofit Urban Tree-Planting Programs by Canopy Cover, Income, Race, and Ethnicity

Watkins, Shannon Lea; Mincey, Sarah K.; Vogt, Jess; Sweeney, Sean

doi:10.1177/0013916516636423

“…Watkins et al (2016) found that nonprofit tree-planting programs were more likely to occur when the proportions of African American and Hispanic/Latinx residents were smaller in a neighborhood (although they found a negative relationship between planting and income) and another study found no relationship between tree requests and the percent of neighborhood residents who were White (Locke and Baine, 2015). If inequity is found to be higher on public land than on private land (see for example), it more directly implicates the behavior of public and nonprofit actors.…”

Section: Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between Urban Forests and Race: A Meta-Analysis

Watkins

¹

,

Gerrish

²

2017

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There is ample evidence that urban trees benefit the physical, mental, and social health of urban residents. The environmental justice hypothesis posits that environmental amenities are inequitably low in poor and minority communities, and predicts these communities experience fewer urban environmental benefits. Some previous research has found that urban forest cover is inequitably distributed by race, though other studies have found no relationship or negative inequity. These conflicting results and the single-city nature of the current literature suggest a need for a research synthesis. Using a systematic literature search and meta-analytic techniques, we examined the relationship between urban forest cover and race. First, we estimated the average (unconditional) relationship between urban forest cover and race across studies (studies = 40; effect sizes = 388). We find evidence of significant race-based inequity in urban forest cover. Second, we included characteristics of the original studies and study sites in meta-regressions to illuminate drivers of variation of urban forest cover between studies. Our meta-regressions reveal that the relationship varies across racial groups and by study methodology. Models reveal significant inequity on public land and that environmental and social characteristics of cities help explain variation across studies. As tree planting and other urban forestry programs proliferate, urban forestry professionals are encouraged to consider the equity consequences of urban forestry activities, particularly on public land.

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“…Watkins et al (2016) found that nonprofit tree-planting programs were more likely to occur when the proportions of African American and Hispanic/Latinx residents were smaller in a neighborhood (although they found a negative relationship between planting and income) and another study found no relationship between tree requests and the percent of neighborhood residents who were White (Locke and Baine, 2015). If inequity is found to be higher on public land than on private land (see Pham et al, 2012 for example), it more directly implicates the behavior of public and nonprofit actors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to their contributions to mitigating climate change (Nowak, 1993), new planted trees promise to provide local benefits to the communities in which they are planted. However, early evidence cautions that urban forestry programs have the potential to create or exacerbate inequity by planting in areas with higher existing canopy cover, higher income (Donovan and Mills, 2014; Locke and Grove, 2016), and with fewer minority residents (Watkins et al, 2016). Even were these programs to plant in low-income and minority neighborhoods, they might yield unintended consequences such as ecological gentrification—increasing property values and forcing low-income renters to relocate (Dooling, 2009; Pearsall and Anguelovski, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between urban forests and race: A meta-analysis

Watkins

¹

,

Gerrish

²

2018

Journal of Environmental Management

Self Cite

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There is ample evidence that urban trees benefit the physical, mental, and social health of urban residents. The environmental justice hypothesis posits that environmental amenities are inequitably low in poor and minority communities, and predicts these communities experience fewer urban environmental benefits. Some previous research has found that urban forest cover is inequitably distributed by race, though other studies have found no relationship or negative inequity. These conflicting results and the single-city nature of the current literature suggest a need for a research synthesis. Using a systematic literature search and meta-analytic techniques, we examined the relationship between urban forest cover and race. First, we estimated the average (unconditional) relationship between urban forest cover and race across studies (studies = 40; effect sizes = 388). We find evidence of significant race-based inequity in urban forest cover. Second, we included characteristics of the original studies and study sites in meta-regressions to illuminate drivers of variation of urban forest cover between studies. Our meta-regressions reveal that the relationship varies across racial groups and by study methodology. Models reveal significant inequity on public land and that environmental and social characteristics of cities help explain variation across studies. As tree planting and other urban forestry programs proliferate, urban forestry professionals are encouraged to consider the equity consequences of urban forestry activities, particularly on public land.

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“…Aerial photograph (left image) and green cover distribution (from left to right: Waveform lidar from our analysis (1Á5 m resolution), national land cover (NLC25) at 25 m resolution and European land cover (EULC100) at 100 m resolution). sociology (Watkins et al 2017), and politics (Heynen 2006). By way of example, there has been a great deal of research into the relationships between human health/well-being and the distribution of urban vegetation based on greenspace estimates derived from remotely sensed data of similar spatial resolutions to the satellite-derived datasets compared in this study (see Table 1 in Supporting Information for references), including (i) broad grain size land cover maps capable of detecting objects larger than 2 ha; (ii) land cover maps with a spatial resolution of 100 m; (iii) land cover maps with a spatial resolution of between 25 and 30 m; (iv) optical remote sensing products with a spatial resolution between 20 and 30 m; (v) land cover maps with a 10 m spatial resolution; and (vi) town planning maps which are able to detect vegetation at sub-10 m spatial resolution, but which omit private gardens.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving models of urban greenspace: from vegetation surface cover to volumetric survey, using waveform laser scanning

Casalegno

¹

,

Anderson

²

,

Hancock

³

et al. 2017

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Summary Urban greenspace has a major impact on human health and quality of life, and thus the way in which such green infrastructure is constructed, managed and maintained is of critical importance. A range of studies have demonstrated the relationship between the areal coverage and distribution of vegetation and the provision of multiple urban ecosystem services. It is not known how sensitive findings are to the spatial resolution of the underlying data relative to the grain size of urban land cover heterogeneity. Moreover, little is known about the three‐dimensional (3D) structure of urban vegetation and delivery of services, and addressing such questions is limited by the availability of data describing canopy structure from the tree tops to the ground. Waveform airborne laser scanning (lidar) offers a new way of capturing 3D data describing vegetation structure. We generated voxels (volumetric pixels) from waveform lidar (1·5 m resolution), differentiated vegetation layers using height as a determinant, and computed statistics on surface cover, volume and volume density per stratum. We then used a range of widely available remote sensing products with varying spatial resolution (1 to 100 m) to map the same greenspace, and compared results to those from the waveform lidar survey. We focused on data from three urban zones in the UK with distinct patterns of vegetation cover. We found −3%, +7·5% and +26·1% differences in green surface cover compared with, respectively, town planning maps (<10 m resolution), national land cover maps (25 m) and European land cover maps (100 m). There were differences of −59·1%, +12·4% and −2·4% in tree cover compared with global (30 m resolution), European (25 m) and national (1 m) estimates. Waveform lidar captured sub‐canopy structure and detected empty spaces in the understorey which contributed a 16% bias in the total green volume derived from non‐waveform lidar observations. We conclude that waveform lidar has a key role to play in estimating important quantitative metrics of urban green infrastructure, which is important because urban greenspace is highly fragmented and shows high levels of spatial and volumetric heterogeneity.

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Is Planting Equitable? An Examination of the Spatial Distribution of Nonprofit Urban Tree-Planting Programs by Canopy Cover, Income, Race, and Ethnicity

Cited by 58 publications

References 66 publications

The Relationship Between Urban Forests and Race: A Meta-Analysis

The Relationship Between Urban Forests and Race: A Meta-Analysis

The relationship between urban forests and race: A meta-analysis

Improving models of urban greenspace: from vegetation surface cover to volumetric survey, using waveform laser scanning

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