Tree Planting Priority Index
In 2023, Clean & Green Pomona published their Tree Planting Priority Index, a method of systematically evaluating inequities in Pomona’s urban forest, and prioritizing areas for planting efforts. The model:
- Uses 12 indicators that characterize environmental burdens, deficits in green infrastructure, and socioeconomic challenges at the census tract level.
- Uses an ordinal ranking system to provide a relative score of census tracts for each factor, in comparison to other census tracts in the city.
- Uses a scoring system in which the rankings of each indicator are averaged to determine an environmental burden score, a green deficit score, and a demographic score for each census tract.
- Combines each of these component scores to produce a Tree Planting Priority Score for each census tract, relative to other census tracts in the City.
It is important to note that the tree planting priority score only rank-orders the census tracts in the city, based on the factors that are included in the model. It does not identify a benchmark of adequate tree cover, nor does it classify communities as “healthy” or “poor” in terms of its urban forest. A census tract with a low priority score should not be interpreted as having adequate tree canopy coverage or free of other challenges.
The report targets eight neighborhoods as the highest priority:
- East Holt Avenue
- Barfield
- East Mission Boulevard
- Willie White Park
- Allison
- Hamilton Park
- Lopez
- Washington Park
We encourage your to read the full report
