BlueGreen Resilience Corridors in DC

Under the National Fish and Wildlife and Wildlife Foundations grant project "Developing Resilience Corridors to Improve Wildlife Habitat and Human Wellbeing". Casey Trees in collaboration with Capital Nature is aiming to achieve some of the following goals.

1. Foster collaboration through a knowledge and visioning charette with all environmental organizations that operate locally
2. Develop a management/action plan for the development and maintenance of existing BlueGreen corridors
   1. Improve flooding resilience
   2. Protect and enhance urban habitat
   3. Climate resilience

Our conversations and ultimately our decisions being informed by data make the difference between minimal and maximal impact. This presentation is not only about the potential of existing data that is shared widely, but the possible impact if smaller organizations have the ability to report their work within a wider context.

The power of data does not just come from it's ability to directly inform our decision making, but to also provide a wider context, environmental or otherwise, to the work we all do.

An example of this can come from looking at a variety of regional analyses and apply that to the scope of this grant. Giving us a wider view of how our work can better connect to the work and existing green assets that are in in nearby regions.

The map above shows an important aspect of the work we will all do on this grant, to connect areas that have already been identified for their ecological significance. While these datasets are not exactly one to one they have both used spatial analysis of a variety of different geographic factors to determine corridors of highest important.

As we prepared for this charrette we identified three data groups that we felt would maximizing good decision making,

1. Existing Green Assets
2. Climate and Urban impacts
3. Existing restoration and stewardship efforts

Below is a little showcase of some datasets that we currently have to assist in our conversation and our final impacts in the future.

Existing Green Assets

Above displays the current NPS and DPR protected green spaces showing us where most of the existing habitat and canopy resides within the district. But this is not the only place within the district that is protected.

With much of the city under extreme development pressures, the landscape of the city is changing, often with with lack of consideration for existing canopy and green spaces.  Casey Trees Land Conservation program aims to restore fragmented patches of urban forest, enhance urban ecosystems and public health, and protect green space for trees to grow and neighbors to connect with nature. This program is achieved by working closely with existing communities to identify land in need of stewardship and land that can be acquired by the organization as an easement. The map above shows a map of all of the land zoned as vacant in DC in orange. These are often the types of parcels that are targeted to be turned into easements, which the existing easements can be seen as the six green pins on the map. This shows that even private organizations are working to preserve and develop green corridors in the city.

This map combines several datasets to show wetlands and their potential mitigation sites within DC. The ‘Wetland Type’ layer is derived from the National Wetlands Inventory and shows the types of wetlands present. The ‘Wetland Creation’ layer shows prospective wetland creation and restoration sites as determined by the Wetland Studies and Solutions, Inc. (WSSI). The US Geologic Survey outlines the hydrologic unit boundaries in DC in the ‘Watersheds’ layer.

Zooming in allows us to see the best management practices layer. Displaying existing green infrastructure for storm water management and other beneficial practices. This gives a holistic view of all the green infrastructure and how it connects to the existing wetlands and waterways within the city. Which are essential to environmental health.

Climate Change and Urban Impacts

As the climate changes and development pressures push harder on parts of the city it is important recognize the issues that come with climate change and urbanization and our role in responding to them.

The existing green assets stated above mirror the negative impacts of climate change and urban development. Visualizing these phenomena and their causes are not just important for communicating these issues but also identifying locations of highest impact for new green infrastructure or stewardship programs.

While these dynamics are pretty obvious, it clearly visualizes the benefits of green spaces. But below, it shows what happens when these spaces are not there. Using the slider below the left side of the map shows you Land Surface Temperature, with the right showing the impervious surface as before.

Note how hot spots mirror lack of canopy and excess of impervious surface. This makes a clear case for the existence of these spaces, as without them communities are more vulnerable to heat stroke and expending more energy for climate control indoors.

As climate change worsens flooding and extreme weather events will follow. The better management of wetlands and creation of these corridors can create flood resilience against these climate impacts. The alternative of further more intensive development on places in these floodplains would be far more costly. See the map above for floodplains and how in many places they overlap with peoples homes.

Trees and green spaces have been directly connected to cleaning up particulate matter air pollution. The model above was based on 2019 data and visualizes the density of PM 2.5 in more developed areas of the city.

Forest patch data above shows an unarguable green asset. Though, it is important to consider the health of our existing canopied spaces and habitats. Many of these forest patches, especially smaller ones with less attention are not only under development threats but also suffer from a variety of urban stressors. Lack of connectivity to smaller forest patches, invasive species, and mismanagement are just a few examples of the problems that these forest patches face.

Casey Trees has an example of proper management of a smaller forest patch near Hellbender Brewery.

Fragmentation of these green spaces has had a particularly negative affect on wildlife in an urban context. Above is data that visualizes calls related to dead animals. When existing green spaces get fragmented by roads, chance of these negative impacts increase.

Another important aspect related to urban impact is health and demographics. Below linked is an archive of older government data that allows you to extract data at a census block level related to income, demographics, and environmental burdens for communities like ozone and wastewater discharge.

 https://edgi-govdata-archiving.github.io/j40-cejst-2/en/#6.29/40.418/-78.48 

Restoration and Stewardship Efforts

Above shows the operating locations and projects of local environmental stewardship organizations. And below shows the number of these organizations by neighborhoods. Credit to UDC for compiling all of these data to visualize many of these local orgs that do not have wider access to advanced data analysis like this.

DC's RiverSmart Homes program has assisted residential property's in installing features that mitigate storm water runoff. The map of displays all the homes in DC that have some type of RiverSmart home installation on them.

DOEE has also done great work mapping out conservation opportunity areas based on habitat conditions and diversity.

Many of the datasets above were examples to allow people to share their work and allow for us to begin to think deeper about the urban context that we are doing this work in. But for future reference I think it would be great for the organizations in this room, especially those without a GIS Team, to have ease of access to much of this information.

I compiled many different datasets into one place and given groups the ability to trace their impacts and display how their work may overlay with much of the information shown above.

In addition to this tool I would like to highlight some impacts we have already had by making this data more accessible to people. I have spoken with a local ANC representative and environmental organizations in Mt Pleasant DC who would like to identify tree boxes in their neighborhood that need maintenance or new trees to improve canopy, for them I developed the following map.

I am also currently looking to curate light pollution data in order to help the local organizations like City Wildlife identify major sources of stressors for insects in the district to better target their efforts.

Data has the power to materialize local anecdotal evidence and instinct of organizations that may not be very data oriented into real action and have more widespread impact.

Before I go I would like to posit a couple questions to everyone here

Is there any data that we are missing?

How will different geographies inform our management plan in the future?

Thanks to everyone here who was willing to share data and everyone in the district government that does a great job maintaining DC Open Data.

mmarchese@caseytrees.org