Abstract

Las Vegas Valley Urban Canopy Study
Track: Forestry
Authors: John Watermolen

Urban trees provide many benefits to communities, such as providing shade, improving aesthetics as well as mitigating storm water runoff and air pollution. The Las Vegas Valley Urban Canopy project determined a baseline canopy cover which was used to calculate the benefits provided by the tree canopy. The canopy cover of the Las Vegas Valley was calculated using GIS data representing different land use categories and tree canopies. ArcGIS was used to develop the different layers needed to run an analysis using the CityGreen for ArcGIS extension. CityGreen has the ability to calculate the canopy cover and calculates a value for the benefits provided by the canopy cover. CityGreen can also assist in developing cost/benefit scenarios by increasing the canopy cover and reducing the canopy cover. This talk will discuss the process of the data creation and the results of the analysis for the Las Vegas Valley.