
Enhancing Resiliency in Baltimore's Urban Forest (2015)
The City of Baltimore, as part of their climate adaptation strategy, has pledged to double their tree canopy over the next 20 years in the hopes of mitigating a variety of climatic hazards that are projected to worsen in the future, including sea-level rise, increased precipitation and extreme heat events. To help the City of Baltimore successfully and sustainably expand their resilient urban forest, we have completed an analysis of other city's management policies to determine best practice and identified precedents where necessary for Baltimore's future climate for planning purposes. The major deliverable of this project is the creation of a spatial decision support system to inform species-specific tree planting based on a variety of projected climatic variables, hazard potential (including heat risk, flooding potential and wind vulnerability), and existing site conditions.
Wing Sze Poon, MS Conservation Ecology
Kristiane Huber, MPP/MS Environmental Policy and Planning
Becca Robinson, MS Environmental Informatics
Dania Gutierrez, MS Behavior, Education and Communication