Washington DC's Urban Tree Canopy in 2020

The launch of Sustainable DC in 2011 established a goal of achieving a citywide tree canopy goal of 40% by 2032. To track our progress toward this goal, DDOT's Urban Forestry Division performs land cover assessments every five (5) years. To date, four (4) studies have been conducted, spanning the period between 2006 and 2020.The 2020 assessment utilized high-resolution (1-meter) multispectral imagery from the Pleiades satellite constellation collected 2020 and LiDAR data from the District of Columbia also collected in 2020 to derive the land cover data set. The satellite imagery was used to classify all types of land cover, whereas the LiDAR data was primarily used to determine vegetation height and distinguish tree canopy from other types of vegetation. The land cover data set was aggregated into the below eight (8) geographies.Despite a recent loss of 565 acres between 2015 - 2020, The city has experienced a net gain overall of 425 acres since the initial analysis in 2006. While any overall loss of tree canopy is unwelcome, there are promising signals for future canopy growth and evidence that the District's regulatory framework is effectively balancing the pressures imposed by economic development on the urban forest resources of the city.While most major land cover types suffered a decline of UTC in the past five (5) years, the public right-of-way has seen sustained growth over not only the most recent study period, but consistently since 2006. These results validate the data driven approach applied by DDOT's Urban Forestry Division, whereby urban forest resources are prioritized and delivered to areas where opportunities are greatest.

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