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GIS Partnership Summary
New York City's Urban Forest Program
2008
GIS Partnership Award Winner
Partnership Purpose and Goal
A strong GIS partnership has developed between the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation (NYC DPR), the U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station (USFS NRS), and the University of Vermont through the New York City Urban Field Station, a joint initiative of the US Forest Service and New York City Parks. A central purpose of this partnership is to apply geospatial technology to improve the understanding of New York City’s urban forest through analysis, data sharing, education, and cooperation. The partnership was originally founded to analyze NYC’s urban forest during the development of PlaNYC 2030. Since PlaNYC’s inception the partnership has expanded to include everything from mapping stewardship groups to educating the next generation of geospatial professionals. The Urban Field Station promotes natural resource stewardship and ecological literacy in New York City and supports research on the ecology, dynamics and benefits of the urban forest.
Participants and Resource Contributions
The major partners involved in spatial analysis are:
- New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC DPR)
- USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Burlington, VT & New York, NY (USFS NRS)
- New York City Urban Field Station
- University of Vermont (UVM), member NYS GIS Data Sharing Cooperative
NYC DPR provides the day-to-day management of all data, conducts timely analysis, and supports data transfer. UVM provides expertise as it relates to high-end geoprocessing, automated feature extraction of remotely sensed data, spatial statistical analysis, and econometric modeling. The USDA Forest Service provides a means to access nationally recognized experts on urban ecology, urban forestry, ecological literacy, spatial modeling, and resource stewardship. Through the Urban Field Station we have recently worked together on geospatial analysis projects such as stewardship mapping, urban tree canopy analysis, and a young street tree mortality study. Numerous data sets, publications and reports have been or will be generated for these projects.
Over 30 other organizations participate in the GIS partnership. The organizations share data and collaborate on select projects. For example, spatial analysis techniques have been used to assist the New York Restoration Project (NYRP) in targeting locations for tree plantings on New York City Housing Authority properties. Using information provided by over 500 nonprofit groups on their "stewardship spheres," a subsequent analysis was performed to identify organizations that NYRP might be able to collaborate with in order to help maintain their trees.
At this time the partnership is in the process of creating inter-agency data standards for the MillionTrees NYC campaign to enable a common operational picture of tree planting initiatives.
Time Frame
Date Partnership
Began: June 2006
Completion Date: On-going
Deliverables
- High-resolution land cover for New York City.
- An urban tree canopy assessment for over 9 million parcels in NYC showing the existing tree canopy and the amount of land available for tree canopy.
- Mapping out the locations of over 4000 environmental groups.
- Recording the stewardship spheres for more than 500 nonprofit groups across the city.
- Tree mortality
Various reports are available on USFS and NYCDPR websites. And, many data sets are made available through OASIS (one of the other 30 partners), NYC's online mapping system.
Brief Summary of Partnership
This partnership has proven to be successful because it leverages the local knowledge present in NYC DPR, the advanced geoprocessing and automated feature extraction capabilities of UVM, and the expertise in resource management from the USDA Forest Service. The organizations in this partnership share data and adhere to the same set of standards.
Within a few months of establishment this partnership completed a complex analysis of NYC’s urban forest that provided the scientific justification for NYC's 1 million tree initiative as part of PlaNYC. Building off of this success the partnership expanded, working with nonprofits to insure the success of the million trees initiative. Part of this expansion included the mapping of "stewardship spheres" for over 500 nonprofit groups within NYC, a dataset that is unlike any other in the nation.
Realizing the excellent educational opportunity this created, the partnership began training the next generation of geospatial professionals to insure the success of PlaNYC through 2030. The educational opportunities coming out of the partnership have ranged from grade school students performing GPS-based inventories of trees to a graduate-level course at the University of Vermont, "GIS analysis of New York City’s urban ecology." For this graduate-level course a group of students is working throughout the semester with DPR staff and USFS scientists on developing prescriptive prioritization maps for targeting tree planting and other "green investments."
Each of the major partners has demonstrated their commitment to furthering spatial analysis. For the past two years we have worked closely to develop data and complete research projects. In the coming years we will be working together on grant funded, New York City Science Plan projects; many of which are based on or utilize a GIS analysis.
Recognizing New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC DPR) as a nationwide leader in urban forestry, NRS signed an MOU with NYC DPR in 2006 to create the Urban Field Station and establish a long-term research partnership to deepen our understanding and strengthen urban natural resource stewardship. The GIS partnership is an essential and natural outgrowth of the field station and was made possible by the MOU.
Additional Information Available On-line
http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/nyc/
http://www.uvm.edu/~atroy/NYC/
http://www.nyc.gov/parks/trees
Primary Contact Information
Jessie Braden
GIS Analyst
New York City Dept of Parks
Olmsted Center – Rm 47
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Flushing, NY 11368
Phone: 718-760-6794
Fax: 718-760-6640
E-mail: jessie.braden@parks.nyc.gov
Secondary Contact Information
Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne
Geospatial Analyst
University of Vermont
Spatial Analysis Lab
81 Carrigan Dr
Burlington, VT 05405
Phone: 802-656-3324
Fax: 802-656-8683
E-mail: Jarlath.ONeil-Dunne@uvm.edu
Erika Svendsen
Research Social Scientist
Forest Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
290 Broadway, 26th Floor
New York , NY 10007
Phone: 212-637-3598
Fax: 212-637-5045
E-mail: esvendsen@fs.fed.us