To help communities get a clear picture of the state of their trees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, several industry organizations have joined together to provide cities, towns and townships in the impacted region with an initial tree risk assessment.
The volunteer crews are collecting address, species and recommendations for immediate care on each tree, and recording the data in handheld computers that feed the information into an online data management program.
The data, along with prioritized recommendations, will then be given back to the individual communities to be analyzed and acted upon.
AN ENORMOUS UNDERTAKING. According to Dudley Hartel, center coordinator for the Southern Center for Urban Forestry Research and Information, the Mississippi forest commission estimated that more than 200,000 urban forest trees were damaged by the storms throughout the state. Hartel says he expects that a similar number of trees were damaged in Louisiana.
“This is an immense task,” Hartel explains. “GPS equipment have been donated and programmed for the assessing teams. Over the next few weeks, the data is being collected and transferred to another partner involved in the group - The Davey Resource Group, Kent, Ohio - which will process the data.”
Hartel says that a handful of volunteers completed data collection in Biloxi and Ocean Springs, Miss., in January. Other coastal and inland communities are being contacted by the Mississippi Forestry Commission, a major partner in the project. “Another volunteer crew is scheduled to work in Kenner and New Orleans beginning March 1,” Hartel shares.
Hartel estimates that the project would finish in the early summer. “We’re going to stay as long as we have volunteers, and we’re prioritizing areas based on need. We’re going to do as much as we can during that time.”
SEED OF AN IDEA. The project grew out of a U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service/Home Depot Foundation project to mitigate salt water damage to oaks in the impacted region, says Greg Ina, manager of Geographic Information Systems/Information Technology for The Davey Resource Group, a division of The Davey Tree Expert Co., one of the partners involved in the project. “Beyond the salt water damage study, there was interest in an overall assessment of the trees.”
Ina suggested that the assessment be conducted using handheld computers and the resultant database hosted online, and was able to secure donated hardware and equipment to help the project along. Davey provided the data collection program, programmed the equipment and will also help analyze the data after the project ends. Other partners, the Society of Municipal Arborists and the International Society of Arboriculture, helped to recruit and train volunteers to spend eight to nine days getting trained on the equipment and collecting data on the Gulf Coast.
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE. The project’s success could have long-reaching impact, Hartel says. “The devastation was so great that any trees that still remain - as long as they are healthy - will be really critical to keep. The alternative is that many would be removed without evaluation. This area has already lost so much of its urban forest, that to take the last remaining trees doesn’t make sense.”
The information collected by the crews will be the basis for the communities’ rebuilding effort. “We’re also inventorying planting locations, so that once the cities act on our recommendations, they’ll also have good locations for tree plantings,” Hartel says.
Ina says the data collected will be converted into TreeKeeper® accounts for the impacted communities. The research data can be analyzed and put to use to help with future storm-related events.
In addition to Davey, the following organizations currently are involved: Alabama Cooperative Extension; Environmental Systems Research Institute; Geospatial Information Technology Association; International Society of Arboriculture; Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry; Mississippi Forestry Commission; NUCFAC; Society of Municipal Arborists; USDA Forest Service, Region 8; USDA Forest Service, Washington Office, Urban and Community Forestry; Coastal Land Trust and USDA Forest Service Southern Center for Urban Forestry.