Climate Change & Asheville’s Urban Forest

Photo by Matthew Karsten, expertvagabond.com

November 14, 2019 Symposium

​BACKGROUND
The City of Asheville has been a Tree City USA for nearly 40 years. Asheville GreenWorks has been instrumental in helping the City attain and maintain that status by mobilizing volunteers to plant and care for trees throughout its 47-year history.

As the city has grown and changed, the focus of GreenWorks’ tree work has evolved from a focus on beautification and greening to a more holistic approach to protecting and enhancing Asheville’s urban forest. With the rapid pace of development in Asheville during the last decade, along with increased local threats of climate change such as extreme heat and flooding, GreenWorks is charting an innovative plan to address climate change at the local level through protecting and enhancing the urban forest.
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A group of volunteers formed the Tree Protection Task Force in 2017, under the auspices of Asheville GreenWorks, to advocate for protecting the trees that make up the urban forest of Asheville. Since that time, the Tree Protection Task Force has supported the City of Asheville's efforts to conduct a gap analysis, review the City's tree ordinances and conduct a study of the change in urban forest canopy cover over a ten-year period.

Armed with this information, the Task Force will launch the Asheville Climate Action Initiative and the Cool Green Asheville campaign to address the steady decline of our urban forest tree canopy and advocate for greater green infrastructure in Asheville.

Event highlights include:

• Networking reception from 5:00 to 5:30PM

• Public release of the City of Asheville's tree canopy study and how it relates to climate resiliency

• Presentation by the NASA DEVELOP Team

• Overview of the Asheville Climate Action Initiative and the Cool Green Asheville campaign

• Roundtable discussion and Q&A with subject matter experts, including:​

  • Amber Weaver, Office of Sustainability, City of Asheville

  • Stephen Hendricks, Chair, City of Asheville Urban Forestry Commission

  • Ashley McDermott, Sunrise Movement Asheville

  • Geoffrey Habron, Professor at Furman University and member of the Sustainability Advisory Committee on Energy and the Environment (SACEE) at the City of Asheville

  • Dawn Chávez, Executive Director, Asheville GreenWorks

Presentation Materials

Data Presentation — NASA DEVELOP
Tree Cover & Urban Heat Islands in Asheville

Keynote Presentation — Trees Louisville
Restoring Urban Tree Canopy with Cindi Sullivan

Panelist Discussion — Asheville’s Urban Trees
Hosted by Blue Ridge Public Radio’s Helen Chickering

Data Presentation — Davey Resource Group, Inc.
2018 Urban Tree Canopy Cover & 10-Year Change Analysis

Asheville GreenWorks Presentation
Asheville’s Urban Trees

EVENT CO-HOSTS

Event Sponsors