Appendix: i-Tree Delivers Value

Summary

  • i-Tree is ideally suited to support Agency efforts addressing the Administration’s priorities on tackling climate change, advancing racial equity, and creating sustainable forests.
  • Inform the implementation and provide forecasting for the National Revegetation Strategy.
  • Required national carbon accounting in urban areas and USDA GHG Entity-Scale  guidelines
  • Climate change forecasting and risk assessment
  • “Evidence tool” to support grant and program agreements as well as provide data benchmarking and forecasting project results while demonstrating progress and results.
  • Provide the ecosystem services reported on Urban Forest Inventory & Analysis plots
  • Provide ecosystem services for Forest Inventory & Analysis (FIA) nationwide (planned)
  • Many agencies, municipalities, and organizations depend on the i-Tree platforms for a range of functions, additional examples can be found here*.
  • Advance and inform state forestry agency Forest Action Plans and municipal urban forestry budget requests.
  • Provide foundational information to develop urban forestry programs around the world (facilitated by USFS International Programs and their country-based partners)
  • i-Tree integrates human population data with environmental data to assess equity issues, address carbon and air temperature effects, and calculate numerous risks to forest and human health. Landscape is the engine behind data and discussions on tree equity in underserved communities. It provides authoritative data in a free and accessible manner to municipal authorities, residential stewardship groups and many others.
  • Consultations with our collaborators and stakeholders will continue to inspire additional functionality that is inclusive and responsive while supporting Administration priorities and ensuring that these tools – including the user support that makes them easy to use – remain free, stable, and accessible to all communities. 

Details

i-Tree advances all areas of the Forest Service Strategic Goals and Mission.

  • Research: promotes healthy, sustainable forests for human and environmental health.
  • State and Private Forestry: provides collaborative, easy-to-use, decision-making tools for community members and land managers to assess existing tree cover and where to plant.
  • National Forests: Beyond ecosystem service calculations, i-Tree tools can geographically target management actions using forest and environmental datasets.
  • International Programs: provides a common currency for land managers to quantify derived ecosystem services and values.
  • Conservation Education: delivers regular academies, updated lesson plans and teaching resources to engage students from grade school through college in hands-on science.

i-Tree helps attain the Forest Service’s Strategic Plan goals.

  • Cost-effectively delivers science-based, sustainable natural resources management tools.
  • Supports land stewardship as it helps promote, preserve, and restore forests – urban and traditional - through long-term planning and strategic conservation for communities.
  • Fosters resilient, adaptive ecosystems to mitigate climate change.
  • Develops technology to address disturbances through detection, prediction, prevention, mitigation, and climate adaptation methods.
  • Promotes market-based conservation and stewardship of ecosystem services.
  • Coordinates all-lands inventory, monitoring, and assessment.
  • Enhances FIA rural forest outputs and assists with expansion of its Urban Areas annualized cycle plot grid system.
  • Disseminates knowledge and tools to restore, sustain, and enhance healthy watersheds.
  • Improves user interaction with the Forest Service and Forest Service data by communicating resources and new knowledge via social media, publications, and the internet.
  • Helps evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of management practices versus objectives.

i-Tree helps meet agency priorities and commitments.

  • Improving the condition of forests and grasslands.
  • Promotion of shared stewardship through partnerships and volunteerism
  • Providing clean, abundant water.
  • Provision of excellent customer service
  • Sharing scientific breakthroughs and new technologies

i-Tree brings value to the Forest Service.

  • Positions USFS as the global leader in sustainability, resilience, adaptation, mitigation, and forest canopy conversations
  • Offsets costs 50% by leveraging public and private funding.
  • Easily engages land managers via technological tools to promote improved forest management, protection, and stewardship globally.
  • Connects forests with human health and other less tangible forest values.
  • Integrates new ecosystem service valuation within FIA assessments.
  • Collaboratively supports land management in National and rural forests.
  • Drives innovation in science and technology to help forest managers.
  • Promotes social justice with visualization of disparities across ecosystem services.
  • Engages youth with outdoor activities and stimulating environmental curriculum.
  • Aid forest management in National Forests and CFLR project areas at the landscape scale.

i-Tree continues to improve and expand for new audiences and better stewardship options.

  • Create specific management prescriptions based on i-Tree results.
  • Provide tree planting accountability over time.
  • Incorporate more risks to human and forest populations around insects and diseases, fire, flooding, poor air quality, and high temperatures.
  • Expand science delivery, outreach, and support with increased training to engage new audiences in understanding the value of forests to improve stewardship.
  • Target locations and species to reduce risks to human and forest populations while enhancing ecosystem services and creating sustainable future forest canopy.
  • Understand how forests and human health are linked across local to national scales.
  • Program-wide: increase capacity of online tools to accommodate increased usership.
  • i-Tree Landscape: neighborhood-level analysis; map updates; more NFS support.
  • i-Tree Design: overhaul and enhance this most popular tool built in 2009.
  • OurTrees & MyTree: position as go-to information sources for community engagement.