Urban Tree Canopy Assessment

The goal of the UTC assessment is to provide decision makers with detailed metrics on the state of their urban forest.  These metrics enable decision makers to not only understand the urban forest in its current form, but to plan feasible approaches to increasing UTC. Questions that can be answered by performing a UTC assessment include:
- What percent of our city is tree canopy?
- How much tree canopy could our city have?
- Who owns the tree canopy in our city?
- Where are the greatest opportunities for increasing tree canopy?

The Urban Tree Canopy (UTC) assessment protocols were originally developed as part of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study as a collaborative partnership between the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the USDA Forest Service, and the University of Vermont.  With funding from State & Private Forestry and with valuable input from collaborators the UTC protocols have been refined and have been applied to numerous cities ranging from Baltimore to Boston.

For more detailed information please visit the USDA Forest Service's UTC Assessment web site.