Urban Forest Hurricane Recovery Program

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Urban Forest Hurricane Recovery Program
http//treesandhurricanes.ifas.ufl.edu
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Urban Forest Management Plan for Hurricane-Prone
Communities
November 24, 2002 Gulfport,
Mississippi September 02, 2005
Francisco Escobedo, Robert Northrop and Wayne
Zipperer
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Urban Forest

• Bring together information and tools from
  previous chapters
• Synthesize information on trees, tree species,
  pruning, planting, design
• Focus on the community rather than the homeowner
  and from individual trees to the urban forest

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Urban Forest?

• Urban forests, the collective sum of all trees
  and vegetation in and around urban areas public
  AND private trees
• Healthy urban forests are composed of trees that
  maximize ecosystem benefits while being able to
  withstand wind storms
• Communities
• neighborhoods
• homeowner associations
• towns or cities

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Urban Forest Management Plan

• Outlines day to day management activities
• who, what, when and how to
  achieve a communitys goals and objectives
  
• Shoul be developed and implemented before damage
  from a windstorm or hurricane can occur
• Used as a blue print for post-hurricane response
  to damages after a storm

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An Urban Forest Management Plan Should

• Create a safe and attractive environment
• Maintain or enhance public and private urban
  forest cover
• Provide ways of responding to the
  communitys needs and requests
• Maximize the well-being minimize the costs
• Improve coordination of management activities
  with other associations, neighborhoods,
  departments or offices

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Background

• Several urban forest management and street tree
  master plans were reviewed in preparation of this
  chapter

• Conversations with urban foresters from across
  the Southeastern US and elsewhere were used
  to develop this outline to help a community
  start its own process

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Approach - First Step

• What does the community want from its urban
  forest?
• Creating a vision
• Setting visions, goals nad objectives
• Community participation
• What is your urban forest resource?
• Assessing the communitys tree, fiscal, and human
  resources
• How do you achieve the urban forest you want?
• Developing goals and objectives
• Implementing a plan to meet the goals and
  objectives
• Are you achieving the urban forest you want?
• Monitoring and evaluating

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A Process- Not a document
Develop Goals Objectives
Community participation
Assess resources
Vision
Implement Goals Objectives
Set Goals Objectives
Monitor and evaluate
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Set Vision and Goals

• A vision is the desired future condition of your
  urban forest and it should be concise and
  meaningful
• A vision statement will define the goals and
  objectives, which lay the framework for the
  management plan.
• Promote a healthy and wind resistant urban forest

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Goals

• Goals are the general statements about what your
  community is trying to accomplish
• Each goal statement then has its own set of
  objectives
• For example, to maintain or increase tree cover,
  wind resistance, and tree diversity

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Objectives

• Objectives are focused, measurable,
  result-oriented activities that support the
  completion of a goal and the community meeting
  its vision
• remove hazardous trees,
• initiate a pruning program, and
• plant wind-resistant trees of different
  ages and sizes in groups

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Community Participation
The vision statement and well defined goals and
objectives should be a community activity

• A management plan has a greater success of
  meeting goals and objectives
• It will help identify and develop alternative
  management options
• The team can discover new information relevant to
  your community and urban forest
• Demonstrate fairness across the community.

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Participants

• Private citizens
• Community forester or tree care professionals
• Representative of planning and zoning, parks
  and recreation, transportation, etc
• Emergency management services
• Media contact
• Public utility providers
• Local non-profit organizations
• Other public depending on the characteristics
  of your community

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A Process - Not a document
Develop Goals Objectives

• Community participation

Assess resources
Vision
Implement Goals Objectives

• Set
• Goals Objectives

Monitor and evaluate
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Developing Objectives

• Who will be responsible
• What, how, and
• When those activities be carried out (timeline)
• Shift from community to specialists
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapters 8 9
• Chapters 12 13

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Developing Goals

• Maintaining diversity in your community
• plant mix of species, ages, and layer tree and
  shrub canopies
• Pre-designating areas for debris storage and
  temporary housing
• Urban Forest Emergency Plans
• Northern cities and ice storms
• smaller communities

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Alternatives
Need alternative options because of changes in
funding, personnel, and community concerns

• Examples
• Objective 1 - Remove all hazard trees at once
• Objective 2 - Prioritize the removal of hazard
  trees and wind-prone species as opportunities
  become available
• Objective 3 - Do nothing

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Assessing Resources

• What should the urban forest look like and
  provide for the community?
• How much urban forest do we want and need,
  present and future?
• Why do we want to manage the urban forest?
• How will we respond in case of a hurricane?

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Tree, Fiscal, and Human Resources

• Historical records
• Lesson learned from past hurricanes
• Library resources
• Tree inventory
• Chapter 7 to 10
• Species, size, condition,
• location, growing space and
• site history
• Assess the resources available
• people, funding, and time

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A Process- Not a document

• Develop Goals Objectives

• Community participation

• Assess resources

Vision
Implement Goals Objectives

• Set
• Goals Objectives

Monitor and evaluate
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Implementation

• Implementation is the realization of your
  communitys goals by carrying out, or putting
  into action, your objectives
• Some objectives can be achieved within a certain
  timeline
• Include emergency management services, public
  utilities, and municipal/county personnel
• Plan for, and determine, how the community will
  respond to these changes

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Go Forth and Manage!?

• Plant
• Prune
• Irrigate
• Communicate
• Educate
• But

www.katrina.noaa.gov
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Finished?

• Develop Goals Objectives

• Community participation

• Assess resources

Vision

• Implement Goals Objectives

• Set
• Goals Objectives

Monitor and evaluate
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Monitor and Evaluate

• Monitoring is the collection of information to
  determine if the plans goals and objectives are
  being met - is your plan effective?
• Living document continually changing to reflect
  changes in resources and funding, and the needs
• What are we doing to meet out goals and vision?

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Evaluation

• Evaluate, or assess, how well your activities are
  achieving your plans objectives
• Management plan should be a continual process and
  not end with the writing of your plan
• View as learning experience and not as a failure

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Review Goals and Objectives

• Management is a continual process of learning and
  adapting to change
• Review the community management plans vision,
  goals, objectives, and activities

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Does it ever end?

• Develop Goals Objectives

• Community participation

• Assess resources

Vision

• Implement Goals Objectives

• Set
• Goals Objectives

Monitor and evaluate
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Start over?

• Most management plans need to be reviewed
• Planning and management are not a discrete event,
  but a long-term process
• in the aftermath of a hurricane, urban forests
  will be secondary to public safety, mitigating
  hazards, cleaning debris, restoring public
  services and utilities

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Remember

• Objectives can have time lines but the plan
  itself should allow for change.
• A clear vision, community participation,
  monitoring, and the ability to adapt your plan
  for an eventual hurricane
• will insure the sustainability of the urban
  forest and its services.

www.katrina.noaa.gov/helicopter/helicopter-3.html
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Conclusion

• Use lessons learned from previous hurricanes and
  the tools in this series to
• develop plans to help communities to prepare
  effectively respond to a hurricane
• develop pre-hurricane goals, objectives, and
  activities
• restore urban forest after hurricanes