By Peggy Ann Brown

For the head of Charlotte, North Carolina's Tree Advisory Commission, the scenario is all too familiar: One day homeowners are enjoying their subdivision's unspoiled setting, the next they're on the phone complaining that there's a three-mile square of bare red clay in the backyard of their quarter million dollar homes.

"By the time they call me it's too late," says Rick Roti, whose committee advises the city council and reviews tree ordinance appeals. "People in rural counties see a lot of wooded areas and don't think they need to protect them.

"But a vast majority of this land is in private hands, and developers are gobbling it up at an astonishing rate," he says. "Overnight, rural spaces can become suburban U.S.A."

American Forests undertook the Carolina Piedmont Green Initiative this spring to address the environmental and economic impact of this tree loss in the central Carolinas. The initiative, which helps local leaders develop strategies to save green infrastructure, centers on Charlotte and covers a 15-county, 4.5 million-acre swath of North and South Carolina.

That geographic sweep acknowledges that a metropolitan area's concerns extend beyond its adjacent counties. Says Roti, the initiative's project consultant: "A city like Charlotte has the resources to clean up its streams and manage its air quality. But if you go into a county that doesn't have rules in place, it's like the Wild West for a developer, and the environment gets trampled. This affects the entire region."

The 'Wow' Factor
American Forests documented ongoing development by comparing the Carolina Piedmont's landcover in 1984 and 2003. Using Landsat satellite imagery, Geographic Information System technology, and American Forests' CITYgreen software, analysts determined the percent of open space, trees, water, and urban areas in the region, then calculated the green landcover's benefits for stormwater control and air pollution removal.

The findings showed that tree cover in the overall area had dropped by almost 20 percent across the 19 years. That figure represents an average of regional differences that range from a low of 10.6 percent in Stanly County, North Carolina, to a high of 34.9 percent in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

As the amount of tree cover decreased, so did its value in removing air pollutants-from $439.6 million in 1984 to $353 million in 2003. Water quality and stormwater benefits also slowed. (For findings by locale: click here.)

"People look at the satellite images and say, 'wow,' " says Roti. "It's excellent in showing trends. You can see the loss of trees and open space and the conversion of natural areas and fields into parking lots and impervious cover."

During the summer, American Forests and its partners shared the results with city planners and local officials in the 15 counties. Each community not only saw how much of its tree canopy had been lost but learned how much has to be spent to compensate for what the lost trees provided naturally in pollution and stormwater control.

Urban Facts
The Carolina Piedmont initiative has its roots in urban forests assessments first begun by American Forests in the mid-1990s. Two years ago, Charlotte became one of 30 U.S. metropolitan areas to have undergone an Urban Ecosystem Analysis (UEA). Similar to the process used to analyze trends for the Carolinas initiative, UEAs use high-resolution aerial photographs of green canopy that provide the detail necessary to make policy decisions.

That first Charlotte/Mecklenburg County analysis compared data obtained from 1984 and 2001 satellite images. The results revealed that the county had lost more than 22 percent of its tree cover and 22 percent of its open space while increasing its impervious surfaces by 127 percent.

"This was the first time we quantified what was going on environmentally as a result of the growth and land development policies that were in place," says Roti. "People were astonished at the loss of tree canopy, and this stimulated an intense interest in expanding the methodology to the whole region."

Much of the concern stemmed from Charlotte's reputation as a city of trees, one with a quality of life that earned it a place among the Most Livable Communities named by Partners for Livable Communities in 1994, 2000, and 2004. With Bank of America, Wachovia, and other financial institutions headquartered there, Charlotte has become the second largest banking center in the U.S. (only New York City is larger). The city encompasses nearly 268 square miles, with a population of 614,330.

"One of the attractive aspects of this region is that we have a major city like Charlotte but within 20 minutes or less you can be in the country," says Roti. "Our challenge is the rapid growth and development. The impervious cover rate is growing four times faster than the population rate."

Additionally, the Environmental Protec-tion Agency has designated parts of the region as having air pollution levels that exceed national standards for ozone, while the American Lung Association ranked Charlotte 14th on its list of metropolitan areas with the worst ozone air pollution.

Says Roti, "Part of the problem is that we're cutting down trees, but it's also the coal-fired power plants and the massive amount of automobiles driving in the sprawled-out area to get to work."

Regional Outreach
These factors came together to make the Carolina Piedmont an appropriate location for American Forests to train local officials in how to "use the green infrastructures for decision making," says Gary Moll, American Forests' vice president for urban forestry. "We have the techniques to show how the tree cover affects the overall economy and to help local leaders put this on their political agenda."

Landsat images provide a historical record of land cover, but American Forests recognized that detailed high-resolution images are needed to really see the impact of further development. One goal of the Carolina Piedmont Green Initiative is to help counties and towns secure funding for both the images and GIS training.

That said, Moll cautions that American Forests puts together data and teaches technique-but does not dictate how communities should handle further development. "This is a living model," he says. "We don't know the local issues. The data and the software tools enable them to run their own scenarios to see how development will affect their area."

Urban Game Plan
With their high-resolution studies already complete, Charlotte and Mecklenburg County have a head start. Both city and county offices already had established GIS offices that use the technology for property assessments, fire districts, and utility lines.

Twyla McDermott is Charlotte's GIS manager and corporate strategic technology planner. "We provide access to GIS data and applications to various city departments," says McDermott. "The green and gray levels are used by storm water services and the planning department."

McDermott concedes that it takes time to change the planning process so that it always includes an environmental component. Her office has brought together local stakeholders to understand the issues and ensure that information is shared.

Says McDermott, "We want everyone to know that this project has resulted in data sets that will enable us to make better decisions, and that the data is available to integrate into business processes in any agency level from the smallest to the largest."

Already, the initiative is making a difference. Roti has seen some of the new data analysis used in planning-Charlotte has adopted a new tree ordinance for multi-family residential development, supplementing a tree ordinance in place since the 1970s. Developers now must save at least 10 percent of the existing tree canopy; incentives such as increased housing density encourage developers to save even more.

Andy Goretti, mapping project director for Mecklenburg County, has used the satellite images to analyze the effects of development on specific properties. Working with CITYgreen, he has run scenarios on the effects of removing trees on a proposed multi-family housing project in Charlotte and an auto mall in a nearby town.

"These studies don't make or break the case for development but give everyone a little more information," says Goretti. "The analyses looked at the dollar value in terms of stormwater runoff and air pollution if they go in and clearcut the properties."

Community Benefits
More typical of Carolina Piedmont communities is the town of Salisbury, population 29,000. For Planning Director Joe Morris, trends revealed by the Landsat/CITYgreen analysis confirmed his intuitive sense that the 11,368-acre town was rapidly losing its green areas. "I can now say 'here's the data on our loss of tree canopy,' and folks understand why this is alarming," says Morris.

Located about 40 miles north of Charlotte, Salisbury boasts 10 National Register of Historic Districts, two liberal arts colleges, and Food Lion's corporate headquarters. "This community has three strong selling points," he says. "We have active historic preservation, a strong philanthropic community born out of our entrepreneurial culture, and an environmental ethic."

Morris ties the city's environmental interests to both aesthetic issues and the realization that the area has "the worst air quality in Rowan County.

"We're downwind of Charlotte, which is a tremendous generator of atmospheric ozone," he says. "We're not guiltless either-we have our cars and a coal-burning steam generation plant. Our approach is that it's not acceptable to complain about our neighbors if we are not willing to do something about our own issues."

Morris is developing strategies to deal with the city's air quality. A city council committee is rewriting a land development ordinance to encourage mixed land usage and reduce automobile dependency. While the city has yet to conduct the high-resolution studies necessary to fine-tune its regulations, Morris says the trends reports have helped open communication with residents.

"The high-resolution images will be an even more powerful communication tool in enabling us to quantify the impacts of our current development standards," says Morris. "With changes in the federal law, we need to be more concerned about storm water issues. We'll also be thinking about how this information plays into the global environment in terms of energy consumption, fuel costs, and electricity."

American Forests' analysis shows how development between 1984 (top) and 2003 has lessened tree cover-and increased concrete and asphalt in the 15-county area.

Future Forecast
As the initiative moves into its next phase, American Forests and its partners are using a multi-faceted approach that shares data across jurisdictions and brings interested parties together to address concerns.

"This is a big project with a lot of moving parts," says Moll of efforts such as funding high-resolution images and software applications for each community, making information available on the Internet, and hosting GIS and CITYgreen workshops.

To Salisbury's Joe Morris, the initiative is one of the ways a smaller town such as his can take control of its own destiny.

"Loss of identity is a major concern of the smaller rim cities around large metropolitan areas," he says. "Communities have to be proactive in order to maintain their small town quality of life and regional identity. We have to be willing to make economic and technology investments that allow us to customize the decision-making process."

Twyla McDermott views the initiative as an opportunity for Charlotte to focus on the immediate environmental impact of business decisions in an era when much of the emphasis is on public safety.

"Homeland security is important, but environmental decisions are also strategic," she says. "There's a complex interplay between transportation, the environment, and economic development that is all about the health and well being of the population. This project puts the best available gold standard data in the hands of those who make recommendations to elected officials."

The Carolina Piedmont Green Initiative is not just about "pretty trees and grass but about real world applications and real costs," maintains Rick Roti.

"We need to fully appreciate the environmental and economic benefits of our trees," says Roti. "We can either cut them down now and pay the price later, or we can pay now to preserve and integrate them."AF

Peggy Ann Brown is an independent researcher/writer in Alexandria, Virginia. [TOP]