Overview
The plan tool allows a user to target and prioritize areas that are most suitable for tree canopy growth based on demographic, socioeconomic, and environmental criteria. Tree planting and increased tree canopy can address issues such as stormwater mitigation, energy conservation, air quality, and human health. The Plan tool allows a user to visualize the areas of their city that would receive the most benefits from increased tree canopy based on selected criteria. Each selected criteria can be weighted high, medium, or low based on the user’s needs.
Instructions
Step 1 – Select a Geography: Select the geographic boundary of interest by using the drop-down menu. The selected geography will be displayed in the map.
Step 2 – Select Prioritization Criteria and Set Weights: By selecting the desired prioritization criteria and the specific weight, a user can control which criteria are used to prioritize areas for new tree planting and how much influence each criteria has on determining which areas are the most suitable for new tree planting. All criteria weights can be changed at once using the None, Low, Medium, and High buttons found at the top of the section. Individual weights can also be adjusted using the specific criteria slider bar. To remove a criteria, simply set its weight to None. By default, all criteria weights are set to Medium. More information on how each prioritization criteria was created can be found in the next section or viewed within the software by hovering over the question mark icon next to each criteria. To learn more about the Plan criteria, click here.
Step 3 – Filter Data: Click and drag the toggle on the Filter
by Site Suitability slider bar. As a user slides the toggle to the
right, a filter is applied to the data, and areas that are less
suitable for new tree plantings based on the selected and
weighted criteria will be removed from the map leaving
only the most suitable areas.
Understanding Your Map
The Plan Tool will display your map according to Site Suitability. Site Suitability is how suitable the area is for planting more trees. The Plan Tool will produce Site Suitability by taking in ecological and societal benefits using specific Plan Criteria.
The more suitable an area is for planting more trees, the more red the colors will be. Areas with Medium Site Suitability will have an orange color. A green color will display for Low Site Suitability.
If you click on a polygon, you will see a pop up appear with the overall rank of Site Suitability. The Rank will compare all of the values included in your weight priorities and order them according to Site Suitability.
An area with a Site Suitability of 1 will have the highest rank in Site Suitability and be the best area for planting more trees. If the rank is a higher number, the ranking will be low, and mean a lower Site Suitability. If the rank is a lower number, the ranking will be high and have higher the site suitability. Also in the pop up, there will be Plan Tool Criteria displayed in a bar graph format.
By hovering over a criteria of interest, you can get the metric for that criteria.
Using The Weight Priorities
Using the weight priorities, you can filter the polygons on the map to those that fit within the Plan Criteria meaning the most to your organization. Let’s use Average Temperature as an example here. You can isolate more than one Plan Criteria metric, however, for this example we will only be using one.
First, set all Plan Tool Criteria to none. Then, set only the Average Temperature to high.
Now on your map, you will see Site Suitability according to the Average Temperature Criteria only.
The Rank will change depending on the Criteria you have chosen. Only the one bar graph for Average Temperature or the Criteria selected will be available in the pop up.
