Looking for some shade!
Among the strategies outlined in Battery Park City’s Sustainability Plan is one to improve the neighborhood’s environmental quality and pedestrian environment by addressing air quality, noise pollution, and the “urban heat island” (UHI) effect, which is created by the heat in dense urban areas associated with people, cars, buses, trains, and other activities.
One of the ways to mitigate the UHI effect is to maximize an area’s tree canopy, or the layer of tree leaves, branches, and stems that provide tree coverage of the ground when viewed from above.
The first step in that effort is now underway. Starting June 1, 2023 and running through the end of August, the Authority is undertaking a tree and biodiversity inventory. This work entails measuring and assessing Battery Park City’s tree canopy – including both street trees and those in our parks/open spaces – as well as inventorying plants in the planting beds throughout the neighborhood.
In this way, BPCA can establish a baseline to inform and optimize its planting decisions and horticultural management practices to further accentuate the positive impacts of greenery for the neighborhood.
Workers conducting this inventory will be on-site a minimum of two days per week, wearing reflective vests while they work. No large equipment or machinery is to be used.
Read more about Battery Park City Sustainability here.
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