Project Background
Trees have an important role to play in sequestering carbon dioxide, in building resilience to the changes that climate change brings to our communities, in cleaning our air and water, in providing habitats, in supporting mental health, and in so much more. Yet planting and maintaining trees costs money and when budgets are tight, these may be among the first cut if the services that trees provide are undervalued.
The University of Waterloo is looking for an analysis of the existing number and health of its campus trees, the climate and broader impacts of those trees and the potential to grow its tree canopy. This work supports the campus Ecomap project that aims to assess the biodiversity and evaluate ecosystem health of our campus greenspaces.
This work also relates to Sustainable Development Goals 11, 13, and 15.
Project Examples
- Note: this project should focus on trees, not shrubs which are the subject of another living lab project.
- Reviewing existing data sets on campus trees, including data found in the Ecology Lab Dataverse and UW Urban Forest tree data on iNaturalist.
- Conducting a tree inventory of a portion of the University of Waterloo main campus that includes total tree counts, geographical coordinates, species diversity assessments, health assessments and size (e.g. diameter at breast height –dbh).
- Using GIS lidar or to assess the total tree canopy coverage for the campus.
- Conducting a literature review to identify and apply best practices for quantifying the annual carbon sequestered by existing trees now and in the future (eg every five years until 2050).
- Conducting a literature review to identify and apply best practices for qualitatively and quantitatively assessing the non-carbon sequestering benefits of campus trees.
- Researching innovative ways of financing the maintenance of trees on campus.
- Identifying any additional maintenance practices that could support the health of the existing trees on campus.
- Identifying areas on campus that would benefit from greater tree coverage and make recommendations for species selection.
- Making further recommendations as appropriate.