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Teams of Volunteers Gather Data

Urban Forest Effects Model (UFORE) in action

August 1, 2011

There is general agreement that trees make a major contribution to air quality, but scientific performance measurements have remained elusive. To gain more scientific information of Sacramento's urban forest, the Sacramento Tree Foundation is conducting a 12 year study to understand the impact of trees on air quality. Our data set? Three hundred randomly chosen plots within our region. Surveys of the plots will be completed every four years - 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. The Tree Foundation is using the Urban Forest Effects Model (UFORE) to collect the data. UFORE is designed to use standardized field data to calculate the environmental effects and value of our urban forest.

 For seven weeks six interns worked tirelessly in hot weather, on slippery slopes, in mucky marshes, along highways, and out in abandoned fields to collect more than 25 data points on 1/10th of an acre plots, throughout the region. From the data collected we will learn:

• Number of different tree species in our region
• Percentages of each land use type
• How tree species and size influence air quality
• Current health of our tree canopy
• Percentage of plantable space

Data outcomes will be available shortly. A huge thank you to our interns who worked so tirelessly: Candice Rankin (UC Berkeley), Christina Swaninger (CSU Sacramento), Dahnish Shams (UC Irvine), Dmitriy Nikitin (UC Irvine), Habib Ahmad (CSU Sacramento), Sara Khalid (CSU Sacramento).