URBAN FOREST MASTER PLAN - Laserfiche WebLink

20 | CITY OF PLEASANTON URBAN FOREST MASTER PLAN STATUS OF THE URBAN FOREST 1.4 Status of the Urban Forest This section provides an overview and summary of the key analyses for canopy cover (public and private trees), tree inventory (public trees only), and City staff operations and budget for the urban forest program that make up the UFMP. 1.4.1 Canopy Cover The City's canopy cover increased from 18.5% in 2012 to 25.3% in 2022 (the most recent year of aerial imagery and liDAR data available at the time of the analysis), reflecting a relative increase of 36.5% (see Figure 1-4 and Table 1-1, Canopy Cover Map and Canopy Cover Change (2012-2022). A study of tree canopy in California found that 15% of urban areas are covered by trees (McPherson, E., et al. 2017), while another study suggests that 20% is a reasonable target for a city developed in a grassland area (Nowak and Greenfield 2020). Pleasanton’s 25% City-wide canopy cover can be considered high by either metric. The high level of canopy cover today shows that City-wide efforts to maintain and grow dense canopy cover are resulting in a robust urban forest. While, the City has historically successfully grown its canopy, there are still challenges which threaten the City’s ability to continue to do so and ensure that canopy cover does not decrease significantly over the next 25 years. One such challenge, as presented in the Key Findings, the City faces a challenge in replacing the number of public trees that are removed each year. New development also threatens tree canopy, particularly in the hillside areas west of Foothill Road and in East Pleasanton. Development in these densely forested regions may lead to a decrease in canopy cover. Improving tree replacement practices at the city level as well as Engaging developers and private property owners in the early planning stages of projects, along with educating the community about the updated Tree Preservation Ordinance, is crucial for maintaining and growing city-wide canopy. The canopy analysis focuses on the City's urban areas (blue and white outline in Figure 1-4) rather than the entire City boundary (solid black outline in Figure 1-4) to monitor canopy change over time. This is because available canopy cover products, such as the 2018 dataset from the U.S. Forest Service, excludes certain non-urban and forested regions. By concentrating on the urban boundary, the City can use a data source that is updated every four years, allowing for more accurate tracking of current canopy cover and targeted management where it is most effective.