Urban Forest Equity Project

What is an Urban Forest?

Urban forests are defined as a collection of trees in cities and suburban areas. Raleigh’s urban forest is made up of individual and groups of trees that come in many shapes and sizes. The urban forest contains dynamic ecosystems that provide critical benefits to people and wildlife. Raleigh’s urban forest helps to filter air and water, conserve energy, provide shade, control stormwater, and provide animal habitat. Trees can help reduce noise and provide places for recreation and relaxation and can provide beauty and form as part of urban design.

Learn About the Project

Raleigh’s trees annually remove 2171 tons of pollutants from the air, absorb 81,693 tons of carbon dioxide and intercept 1.6 billion gallons of stormwater and provide annual benefits worth $287,379,207 in ecosystem services.

As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the US Forest Service has awarded $1 million dollars to the City of Raleigh to support tree planting, urban forest management and planning, and related activities, particularly in disadvantaged communities.

trees planted between the street and sidewalk

The funding associated with this historic opportunity will be put towards the benefit Raleigh’s citizens to help enhance, protect, and expand the equitable distribution of the public urban tree canopy and improving the overall forest health through tree maintenance. The goal is to maximize the community health, social, ecological, and economic benefits associated with urban trees. Tree maintenance and hazard tree removal will improve the safety and overall health of the forest while making it more resilient to storm and environmental damage. Tree planting helps advance environmental equity, species diversity, increases tangible ecosystem services, improves heat island and stormwater mitigation, and sequesters carbon.

children in safety vests digging holes for trees to be planted

The grant projects will build on the work that the City of Raleigh is currently undertaking related to the Strategic Plan and Community Climate Action Plan to address heat islands and stormwater mitigation. This work will add to work started through the Street Tree Equity project, green stormwater infrastructure initiatives and others to help expand and maintain the urban forest and improve environmental equity across Raleigh.

The grant funds will be used to remove potentially hazardous trees, prune existing trees and purchase and plant public trees in Federally determined disadvantaged communities of Raleigh. The areas of work where funds can be expended are in census tracts identified by the Council on Environmental Quality through the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool. The areas that qualify for this funding are highlighted on the map below.