Master's Projects, Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation
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Browsing Master's Projects, Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation by Department "Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation"
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- Designing an Urban Forest Inventory System for a Small Municipality: A Case Study of Falls Church, VirginiaWalker, Catriona (Virginia Tech, 2015-05-16)The City of Falls Church, Virginia is an independent city in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, with a population of 13,600 within its two square mile jurisdiction. The City's residents are justifiably proud of their beautiful and extensive urban forest. Falls Church has been a Tree City USA for thirty-six years, longer than any other community in Virginia, and the protection of its mature trees and expansion of its tree canopy are key goals in the City's Comprehensive Plan. This report describes the development and testing of a tree inventory system for the City using the ESRI ArcGIS data mapping platform. The database design and the procedures for data collection are described and illustrated. Strengths and limitations of the ESRI software and hardware options for the purpose of collecting and displaying tree inventory data are considered, and recommendations are made for further development of the inventory system. It is hoped that this case study will be of use to other entities considering the creation of a complete or partial tree inventory.
- Growing Trees in a Gravel Bed Stormwater Retention System as a Novel Approach to Stormwater Management in Urban SitesSprouls, Jason M. (2020-05-19)Dense urban areas are typically covered by impervious surfaces used to construct roadways, parking lots, and sidewalks. Sealing over soils with impervious surfaces increases stormwater runoff volume and reduces water quality downstream. Green infrastructure technologies are a commonly used stormwater control measure that can capture stormwater runoff generated from impervious surfaces. The inclusion of woody and herbaceous plants in green infrastructure mitigates stormwater runoff through canopy interception, increased soil infiltration, and evapotranspiration. However, planting trees situated amongst impervious surfaces remains difficult because they suffer from slow growth rates and shortened lifespans due to the soil compaction necessary to create a stable pavement, which diminishes the water storage capacity of soils and hampers root system development. These green infrastructure technologies in ultra-urban areas also present extremely harsh growing environments for trees due to soil moisture extremes, inhospitable microclimates, and pollution contamination. The subject of this paper is a gravel bed stormwater retention system that was developed to address the combined needs of a stable hardscape, belowground stormwater storage, and tree root development to lead to large, long-lived trees that both intercept precipitation and transpire captured runoff. The design specifications of this system are intended to be low-cost, technically simple, and highly adaptable based on site configuration and intended stormwater capture. This paper describes a pilot project on the Virginia Tech campus that constructed the first multi-tree gravel bed stormwater retention system, which aims to evaluate the functionality and feasibility of the system. This pilot study will raise awareness of trees in green infrastructure systems and provide information about the cost-effectiveness and practicality of the gravel bed stormwater retention system. Also included in this paper is an investigation of the ecophysiological and morphological adaptations that tree species confer to adapt to the unique hydrologic regime and substrate found in green infrastructure systems. Through a rigorous review of literature, a species suitability model was populated by 75 tree species. The model stratified species into groups based on foliage type and mature size to provide a diverse palette of species to allow practitioners to configure the gravel bed stormwater retention system based on cultural conditions, aboveground space limitations, and site-specific environmental challenges.
- Identifying Impediments to Completing an Urban Forest Canopy Assessment in Municipalities in the State of VirginiaWest, William (Virginia Tech, 2010-05-12)Tree canopy assessments help identify the extent and location of urban forest resources under management. Tree canopy assessments give a picture of what the urban forest resource looks like presently; and can be used to establish and track management goals for a municipality and quantify benefits being provided by the urban forest. Such an assessment can also help guide the most effective distribution of labor and resources. However, many municipalities in Virginia do not have canopy assessments and are unable to realize these benefits. To assess what impediments urban forestry professionals of small municipalities in Virginia are facing, we conducted a focus group meeting of experienced urban foresters via teleconference. Participants were asked about their perceptions and knowledge of tree canopy assessments. Participants had general knowledge of the benefits of an assessment, but generally lacked, or had varying degrees of knowledge of the methodologies for conducting an assessment. Participants expressed concerns on topics such as funding an assessment; communicating the value of an assessment to decision makers and citizens; and the use of volunteers in gathering information for a tree canopy assessment. Specific suggestions generated by the focus group to overcome perceived or real impediments were a website resource for urban forestry professionals co-sponsored by Virginia Tech and the Virginia Department of Forestry and coordinated support for the Tree Stewards Program at the state level to improve success using volunteers for urban forest assessment. In addition, participants agreed that a survey of urban forest decision makers from municipalities across the state would help Virginia Tech and the Virginia Department of Forestry better target outreach programs to meet municipal needs in urban forest canopy assessment.
- Initial Performance of Trees in an Urban Stormwater Bioretention SystemApisa, Ethan A. (2022-04-28)Stormwater runoff is an issue in urban areas as impervious surfaces increase. Various bioretention systems that incorporate trees have been developed but are expensive, technically complex, and require large amounts of space, which limits their widespread use as a stormwater solution. This study investigated a novel design for a bioretention system that is less complex and may hold promise as an inexpensive approach to capturing runoff and growing trees near impervious surfaces. The system comprises a large bed of gravel surrounding a trench of topsoil planted with trees. The gravel bed captures and retains stormwater from adjacent hardscapes. Roots extending outward from the topsoil into the gravel bed absorb and recycle captured water through transpiration. A full-scale field prototype of this system was constructed adjacent to a parking lot on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA in spring 2020. The system was planted with three London planetree (Platanus × acerifolia ‘Morton Circle’), which were compared to three control trees of the same species planted concurrently in nearby native control soil. The purpose of this study was to monitor stormwater capture by the bioretention system and evaluate tree growth and physiological function during the second growing season following planting. Because the topsoil in the gravel bed was of better quality than the native control soil, trees in the gravel bed exhibited greater water use efficiency and had larger and denser crowns during the study period. Under prevailing precipitation conditions, the gravel bed rarely captured runoff exceeding its volume capacity, and the residence time of water in the system rarely lasted more than 48 hours before draining via deep infiltration into the underlying subsoil.
- Reducing the Conflict between Trees and Overhead Utility Lines through Public Awareness and EducationMatiuk, Jonathan D. (Virginia Tech, 2016-09-08)Trees in the built environment often have the potential to grow large enough to touch overhead utility lines, creating a dangerous interaction between the urban forest and utility infrastructure. The purpose of this project is to address the prevalent conflicts between urban forests and utility lines by raising awareness and educating the public of the seriousness of the conflicts and of the possible solutions to manage the conflicts. By creating additional resources that can be used to educate or spread awareness of the importance in preventing the conflict by planting trees of appropriate size and form, homeowners and utility companies could save money on regular tree pruning, tree removal, and costly infrastructure repair that is passed on to the consumer through increased electricity costs. The first product of the project takes advantage of an established online horticultural and arboricultural community webpage, called Plants Map, where the full inventories of five Virginia “utility arboreta” have been uploaded. The utility arboreta were designed to illustrate appropriate trees to plant near and underneath utility lines. Previously, the arboreta displayed limited information on each tree. Plants Map allows visitors of the arboreta to use their smart phones to open a webpage displayed on plant tags that will be purchased for each tree. The second product is a newly written publication for Virginia Cooperative Extension that discusses the necessity for conflicting trees to be removed or pruned, that removing conflicting trees and replacing them with appropriate trees is typically the most cost effective solution, and that trees 25 feet or shorter in height at maturity are the most appropriate to plant underneath utility lines. These two products combine to provide the means for the general public to gain an appreciation of the dangers of tree and utility line conflicts and that planting small trees instead of large ones near utility lines has the potential to save significant amounts of money in future tree care.
- Stewardship Plan for Virginia Tech's Old-Growth Forest near Lane StadiumWalters, Rodney S. (Virginia Tech, 2016-08)The Stewardship Plan for Virginia Tech’s Old-Growth near Lane Stadium is a thorough compilation of essential tasks and prioritized recommendations for the protection and posterity of the urban old-growth forest patch, known unofficially as Stadium Woods. This Forest Stewardship Plan includes executive oversight input from a joint venture between Virginia Tech’s Vice President of Administration and the College of Natural Resources and Environment’s Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation. Using the initial findings of the ad hoc Athletic Practice Facility Site Evaluation Committee, this Forest Stewardship Plan provides recommendations to sustain Stadium Woods as a multifunctional, interconnected, and integrated forest that functions as a green infrastructure facility for Virginia Tech and the Town of Blacksburg. This Forest Stewardship Plan is effective in minimizing human impacts and maintaining the forest’s functionality as a high quality ecosystem that provides maximum benefits while incurring minimum costs over time.