Cleveland is hoping an effort to catalog its estimated 90 thousand trees will provide it with info on how to increase the city's tree canopy.
The city issued a request for proposals for a team of arborists who will spend a year cataloging every tree in the city including the type, its location, age and health.
"One of the reasons why we put this RFP out, is ... so that we can collect real-time asset information on all of our public right of way trees," Urban Forestry Manager Jennifer Kipp said, "to find out what is the overall health of our forest, how resilient is our forest to climate change and impacts, what's the age and species distribution so that we can just better manage the resource that we have."
Tree canopy can improve air quality, reducing the risk of asthma and cardiovascular disease. The City of Cleveland aims to increase its tree canopy from 18% to 30% by 2040.
"The inventory will also allow the city to figure out which trees need to be removed or better maintained," Kipp said, and where new trees are needed and will likely survive.
"Where is all the opportunity for us to reforest the city?" she said. "Specifically, where are the locations where we can plant ... large shade trees ... like oak trees, because those are the trees that are going to give us the most environmental benefits."
The data from this inventory will also prove useful in reforesting neighborhoods with disproportionately low canopy, Kipp said.
The city currently deals with a tree emergency, like falling branches, on an almost daily basis and loses about a thousand trees each year, Kipp said.
The inventory is expected to cost $1 million, Kipp said. The city will use its $3.4 million U.S. Forest Service grant, awarded in September, to cover the cost of the project.
The data is an essential step in bolstering Cleveland's overall tree canopy, Kipp said.
"We have to first have a plan to maintain and manage what we have and then start looking at how do we build canopy because it takes 15 years to establish a new tree," Kipp said. "We do not plant trees and then walk away. That's not sustainable financially or ecologically, so we're very much invested in how do we give that tree the best chance."
Kipp says the inventory will take about a year to complete, but the city will continue work to increase canopy in the meantime. The next tree planting is slated for this spring.
The city will accept proposals until February 10, Kipp said and plans to select a team by July.
