Climate Resilience and Adaptation Webinar Series – A2/River Network

River Network partnered with A2 (Anthropocene Alliance) to host a learning series on Climate Resilience and Adaptation. The recordings and related resources for each session can be found below.

Logos for A2 and River Network
Various photos of tree planting work.

1. Monitoring Your Projects: Ecological + Grant Compliance Approaches

How do we measure the success and challenges of our climate resilience projects? Hear strategies and insight from Amanda Richey from A2 and Dr. Brie Bernik, Senior Environmental Scientist at Research Planning Inc. and formerly the restoration ecologist behind data management and monitoring at the RESTORE Council. Amanda will share best practices for measuring the ecological benefit of projects, while Brie will talk us through monitoring for grant compliance and reporting.

Resources

2. Tree Planting + Disaster Planning: Planning Projects That Are Resilient to Climate Impacts

This session features  Dr. Asia Dowtin, Professor of Urban Forestry at Michigan State University and Amy Stone, Outreach Coordinator at Woodlands Conservancy. Dr. Dowtin shares how urban forests help protect communities from extreme weather and improve environmental quality. Amy shares strategies and insight from her experience coordinating tree planting in the disaster context of Southeast Louisiana.

Q&A From Live Session
  • Dr. Dowtin, are there any online calculators you’d recommend for estimating stormwater interception by entering tree cover, tree types, typical rain events? 
    • Yes! I would highly recommend the iTree toolkit. This is 100% open source to any and all users worldwide. The toolkit consists of various tools that allow you to see how trees contribute to stormwater, as well as how they help provide an array of other ecosystem services. There are several tools within the toolkit that allow you to assess the contribution of individual trees (e.g., iTree My Tree and iTree Design), some that allow you to determine the contributions of trees over a specified area (e.g., iTree Canopy and iTree Eco), and a tool that allows you to estimate what contributions trees you are planning to plant will make (iTree Planting). https://www.itreetools.org/ 
  • Loved your presentation, Dr. Dowtin; this work is super interesting, and I would love to read your paper on this. I am curious about how to prioritize those trees that are more effective management given droughty areas and how long some of those more desirable trees take to grow. Those trade offs are difficult to manage, and I’m curious how you would strategize to get the “best bang for our buck” with tree plantings. 
    • One of the concepts/approaches my colleagues have been using is the nurse tree strategy. In this approach, you essentially plant a mix of trees – some that will be fast growing but have a relatively short lifespan, and those that will be slower growing but will last for quite a while. The faster growing trees will grow in a way that has a few benefits: (a) the will shade the weeds that could make it hard for the slow growing trees to grow, and (b) they will help mitigate stormwater in the process (either through interception, infiltration, or taking up water via their roots in the process of evapotranspiration). Overtime, the slower growing trees will do the same thing as they mature. With this process you would want to plant trees that will be resilient to the conditions in which they may be planted (e.g., drought tolerance if need be) and ultimate suitable to the area. You can find the trees that do well in your region that fit these criteria. I hope tis is helpful!
  • Dr. Dowtin, how do you weigh the pros and cons between a tree’s physical characteristics for stormwater management and whether or not a tree species is native or non-native? Especially with climate and habitability zones changing. Thank you for presenting!
    • Great question! What my colleagues and I have been thinking through is the native, non-native, and invasive exotic divide. If a tree falls into that last category, then it is a non-starter and we don’t consider it. If it is non-native but not invasive, then we may consider it if it is hardy for the area we are planting in (i.e., can survive the winters). Given changes in climate, we have been experimenting with species that are not necessarily native to our area and are not known to be invasive, but will actually likely be okay in the area as the climate changes. We’ve used some great references to guide us in these conversations, such as the vulnerability assessments created by NIACS. https://www.climatehubs.usda.gov/hubs/northern-forests/topic/northern-forests-vulnerability 
  • Dr. Dowtin, how does the height of the water table/soil types impact the types of trees we plant for stormwater management? Thanks!
    • This is a great question. The golden rule in this direction is “right tree, right place.” Ultimately, you need to know what species like their feet wet (i.e., can handle being flooded), and what species can do well in different soil conditions. There is helpful guidance  out there from different university extension offices that share out on what local species do well given different soil moisture and structure conditions. I would recommend using those resources as a starting point, and then combining that with what you know about your site (i.e., how compact the soils are, how poorly drained the soils are) to find the right tree for the right place
  • Dr. Dowtin, I am curious about trade-offs for urban public health – have you considered trade-offs between stormwater mitigation, temperature reduction, and pollen? Are there species that can do it all or is prioritization necessary?
    • Some species can do a lot of things, but prioritization takes a lot of venn diagram work with species traits to inform your decision making process. There will always be competing priorities for a community, neighborhood, and city. You need to know which species will do well in your region and what works in the community priority context.
Resources

Resource Materials