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Location: Islington, London
Tree Cover Assessment and Tree Planting Opportunity Map – London Borough of Islington (LBI)
LBI worked with Treeconomics to establish an asset register and benefits assessment of its publicly-owned trees. This was followed by an urban forest canopy cover mapping exercise across the borough, which gave detailed information on tree and woodland cover. The project reported on the relationship of tree cover to other environmental and socio-economic data, including: flooding, air pollution, crime rates, house prices, deprivation and others.
LBI then commissioned Treeconomics to create a Tree Planting Opportunity Map, in order to highlight and illustrate the best areas for tree planting and to model canopy cover change in the future.
Treeconomics worked with LBI to prioritise and weight the environmental and socio-economic factors of most concern, in order to create a multi-criteria analysis of tree planting opportunity throughout the borough.
This allowed LBI to target and rank tree planting in the areas of greatest need. The GIS layers produced also allowed LBI to see the available plantable space for both public and private land within each ward and for individual parcels of land. Existing tree canopy (to 10cm resolution) can also be viewed and is accounted for. This mapping was critical in establishing realistic, evidence-based canopy cover targets for LBI.
“As a result of the tree studies and Webmap, the Borough was able to obtain political support and a substantial amount of funding for the planting and maintenance of new trees. It’s great to see the results graphically rather than trying to tease them out of data”.
As a result of this study and the accompanying policy review, which linked trees to key targets within international, European, regional and local plans, LBI was able to secure an extra £120K of funding from local government, specifically for new tree planting and maintenance.
To complement the publication of the reports, LBI also commissioned Treeconomics to create an Urban Forest Webmap. This was a publicly-available online tool, which displayed the results of the tree cover assessment in an interactive format, allowing the local community to see the extent, value and condition of its local tree stock.
Download the report here.
Treeconomics is the go-to organisation for the valuing of trees in towns and cities. We specialise in all aspects of urban forest management and offer a range of services, from canopy cover assessments through to comprehensive management plans.
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