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Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs that make up New York City. It has over 2 million inhabitants
and covers an area of 182.7 km2. The urban forest of Brooklyn is diverse, ranging from very low tree
cover in intensely populated high-density residential areas to extensive canopy cover in large city
parks such as Prospect Park, to trees and vegetation in bordering salt marshes.
The urban forest in Brooklyn is important to its citizens, especially since urban
trees and associated wildlife often represent the residents' primary contact and
interaction with nature. Despite the low tree cover in many areas of Brooklyn, the
trees are also particularly valuable for their environmental benefits. Air quality
improvement, provision of shade, storm water reduction, and moderation the urban
heat island effect are a few of the important benefits provided to citizens by
the urban forest.
The citizens, activists and politicians recognized the value of the urban forest in
the borough and the need to characterize its extent and benefits to enhance its
management. The UFORE project was the direct result of an initiative started by
interested citizens and politicians in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service.
Cooperators
The following organizations contributed to the project:
- Borough of Brooklyn, NY (Howard Golden, President)
- USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station (David Nowak, Ph.D., Project Leader)
- Davey Resource Group (Christopher J. Luley, Ph.D., Project Leader)
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A previous UFORE project in New York City had established over 200
randomly located .1 acre plots distributed over all five boroughs to study the
urban forest. The Brooklyn project expanded on this initial work and in 1997
added more field plots so that 202 plots were measured in Brooklyn.
Results
Highlights of the project results were:
- Overall tree cover of 11.4% with open space (21.4%) and 1-2 family residential
(17.0%) land-use having the highest cover, and Commmercial/Industrial (1.9%) the
lowest.
- The most common trees were Tree of Heaven, mulberry, black locust, maple, and black cherry.
- The urban forest stores over 172, 400 metric tons of carbon with a value of $3.5 million dollars.
- The forest removed over 254 metric tons of air pollutants worth $1.3 million dollars annually.
The information in the UFORE analysis provides the basis for the development of
management practices that can enhance urban forest benefits.
More details on this project can be found in the following publication:
Nowak, D. J., D. E. Crane, J. C. Stevens, and M. Ibara. 2002. Brooklyn's urban forest. USDA Forest
Service Northeastern Research Station, Gen. Technical Report NE-290.
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