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Historical Urban Tree Canopy Cover Change in Two Post-Industrial Cities

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Abstract

Present-day spatial patterns of urban tree canopy (UTC) are created by complex interactions between various human and biophysical drivers; thus, urban forests represent legacies of past processes. Understanding these legacies can inform municipal tree planting and canopy cover goals while also addressing urban sustainability and inequity. We examined historical UTC cover patterns and the processes that formed them in the cities of Chelsea and Holyoke, Massachusetts using a mixed methods approach. Combining assessments of delineated UTC from aerial photos with historical archival data, we show how biophysical factors and cycles of governance and urban development and decay have influenced the spatiotemporal dynamics of UTC. The spatially explicit UTC layers generated from this research track historical geographic tree distribution and dynamic change over a 62-year period (1952–2014). An inverse relationship was found between UTC and economic prosperity: while canopy gains occurred in depressed economic periods, canopy losses occurred in strong economic periods. A sustainable increase of UTC is needed to offset ongoing losses and overcome historical legacies that have suppressed UTC across decades. These findings will inform future research on residential canopy formation and stability, but most importantly, they reveal how historical drivers can be used to inform multi-decadal UTC assessments and the creation of targeted, feasible UTC goals at neighborhood and city scales. Such analyses can help urban natural resource managers to better understand how to protect and expand their cities’ UTC over time for the benefit of all who live in and among the shade of urban forests.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Garden Club of America Fellowship in Urban Forestry and by the Human-Environmental Regional Observatory at Clark University. We thank Eileen Crosby from the Holyoke Public Library for generously helping us access city archival data and history as well as Penni Martorell from Wistariahurst for providing Holyoke budgetary documents and Wistariahurst history documents, for offering her archival expertise and reviewing this work. We are grateful to Bob Collins from the Chelsea Public Library who shared historical documents, as well as his own lived experiences in Chelsea. We also thank Julie Coop from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation who provided tree grant history data and Dexter Locke (USDA Forest Service) and Jacque Healy who helped review the paper. The opinions and findings expressed in this paper are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or US Government determination or policy.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by MH, and SN. The first draft of the paper was written by MH and all authors commented on and refined further versions of the paper. All authors read and approved the final paper.

Funding

This research was supported by the Garden Club of America Fellowship in Urban Forestry.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, 950 Main St., Worcester, MA, USA

    Marc Healy, John Rogan, Deborah G. Martin & Nicholas Geron

  2. Northern Research Station, Philadelphia Field Station, USDA Forest Service, 100 N. 20th St., Philadelphia, PA, 19103, USA

    Lara A. Roman

  3. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, 251 Hayden Hall, 240 S 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Sabine Nix

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  1. Marc Healy
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  2. John Rogan
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  3. Lara A. Roman
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  4. Sabine Nix
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  5. Deborah G. Martin
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  6. Nicholas Geron
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Correspondence to Marc Healy.

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Healy, M., Rogan, J., Roman, L.A. et al. Historical Urban Tree Canopy Cover Change in Two Post-Industrial Cities. Environmental Management 70, 16–34 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-022-01614-x

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