Home > ARRA Projects >
Restore Community Ecosystems While Promoting Green Jobs in the Puget
Urban forests and green spaces provide a diversity of community benefits.
A suite of research projects in the Puget Sound region, jumpstarted with $1,346,000
in economic recovery funding from the Pacific Northwest (PNW) Research Station,
is helping resource managers and policymakers design and implement strategies
to enhance urban natural systems and foster healthier lifestyles. The projects
are being implemented through the Green
Cities Research Alliance (GCRA), a
network of scientists, local governments, conservation organizations, and urban
sustainability professionals. The GRCA’s collaborative research is providing
tools and information to evaluate and monitor the condition of urban forests,
to prioritize restoration and conservation activities, and to understand what
motivates citizens to become involved with stewardship of their local resources.
Scientists Dale Blahna and Kathy Wolf are the PNW Station’s GCRA collaborators.
Other partners include the Cascade Land Conservancy, University of Washington
School of Forest Resources, King County, EarthCorps, Institute for Culture
and Ecology, City of Seattle, Oregon State University, International Forestry
Consultants, Inc., USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station (Chicago and
New York field stations), and Baltimore Ecosystem Study. The GCRA is the first
group in the region to bring together the leading organizations to work collaboratively
on urban sustainability research and to promote a significant expansion of
research connections at the community level.
The GCRA’s economic recovery-funded jobs have supported the operations
and expansion of the collaborative. In addition to providing needed work on
research projects, the hirees are building the skills and knowledge needed
for urban natural resources careers. The jobs created or saved include such
activities as project planning and development, field data collection in the
Puget Sound area, geospatial and statistical analysis, writing scientific and
technical reports, and presentation of project results at regional and national
The ARRA-funded research includes many topics that align with USDA Forest
Service and PNW Station science goals (see figure below). Research projects
using other funding sources are also underway. Members of the GCRA meet frequently
to share and integrate information on their findings, with the goal of providing
communities with practical knowledge of how to plan, conserve, and manage urban
natural resources, including urban forests.
URBAN NATURAL RESOURCE STEWARDSHIP
Civic Environmental Stewardship—Volunteer stewardship
is an important component of strategies to restore and manage urban ecosystems.
contribute to grassroots community building and social cohesion. In an effort
to understand why people volunteer for stewardship projects, volunteers were
surveyed while participating in a series of stewardship events held in public
open spaces across Seattle and King County in 2010 and 2011. Results revealed
important insights about stewards’ motivations and experiences; for
example, volunteers appear to be motivated equally by opportunities to act
concerns for the environment and concerns for their neighbors and community.
The findings will help sponsoring organizations build program capacity and
develop more effective programs and operations.
Organization Network Analysis—Stewardship gets done because well-organized
groups, such as local governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
support projects and events. Few organizations operate independently. Better
knowledge about the networking, communications, and collaborations across
stewardship organizations will allow more efficient and effective work planning.
In 2010 an organization survey was conducted with more than 500 groups, ranging
from large, regional NGOs to small “friends of” groups in King
County. Analysis is underway to learn more about how stewardship networks
function in the King County region, and to compare networks in the Pacific
Northwest to those in Baltimore and Chicago.
significant number of urban residents connect with urban green spaces through
the gathering of a large variety of plants
and fungi for
food, crafts, ceremonial use, and market products. This study seeks
to understand the characteristics of urban foragers, the places that provide
them, and the social, economic, and cultural importance of their activities.
The results of the research will help local and regional planners better
understand the ways in which green spaces are used and work toward increased
of gatherers in stewardship activities. Data collection has been completed,
and final reports are in preparation.
conducted via interviews, surveys, and focus groups is identifying
the underlying factors that influence individual choice
of residence location. Investigators are also documenting the patterns of
development outside the metropolitan area that result from these choices. This
will help local and regional planners develop effective conservation and
stewardship strategies for both public and private lands within the wildland-to-urban
LANDSCAPE ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT
Forest Landscape Assessment Tool—The
numerous forested parcels in King County, adding up to almost 22,000 acres,
are important to the well-being
of residents, but the lands are threatened by invasive species, disease,
This project is developing baseline data on the health of forested open
spaces and parks in the county, and is also creating tools that can be used
for conducting multiscale forest health assessments. The data are helping
King County forest managers develop corrective and restorative management
to sustain the many benefits provided by forested urban lands.
Geospatial Analysis—From remote sensing data, the Remote
Sensing and Geospatial Analysis Laboratory (RSGAL) of the University of Washington
high-resolution geospatial products, which are being used to support other
research within the GCRA. Such products are essential for understanding landscape
patterns of urban forests, and detecting change over time. Working together
with other GCRA projects, the geospatial team is developing land cover analysis
tools that can determine the composition, character, and health of urban vegetation.
Forest Ecosystem Values—This project is an effort to understand
the forest canopy conditions across all public and private lands using
a city-wide (Seattle,
2010) and county-wide (King County, 2011) field sampling approach. Results
from the USDA Forest Service’s i-Tree tools will first provide calculations
of the ecosystem services contributed by urban forests in the study areas,
and also will provide estimates of economic valuation. The study also is
improving methodologies and field tools for conducting such assessments.
Green Cities: Good Health—“Ecosystem services” describes
a broad array of benefits and functions that vegetation and landscapes provide
for people. As cities pursue sustainability goals, there is increasing interest
in the role of nearby nature in achieving environmental, social, and economic
outcomes. Nearly 40 years of research (much of it funded by the USDA Forest
Service) demonstrates that urban ecosystems contribute to human health and
well-being in many ways. A Web site serves as a focused science delivery tool,
providing summaries of the research accessible by citizens, decisionmakers,
and resource professionals to improve urban greening design and management: