Percent of citywide tree canopy coverage on public and private property

Urban Forestry staff classifies points from aerial images derived from i-Tree Canopy, Google Maps, and ESRI shapefiles into one of four categories - trees, water, impervious surfaces (buildings, pavement, concrete, etc.) or pervious surfaces. Each year, 3,000 random points are sampled to achieve a reasonable confidence interval for the results.  The program then calculates the percentage of each of the four categories. For the reported tree canopy coverage calculation, only the percentage of trees on land mass is used by deducting the percentage of water since trees cannot be planted in water. This is consistent with the recommended process to measure tree canopy coverage used by the Florida Forest Service.  

The target was selected to align with progress towards the goal of attaining 33% tree canopy coverage by 2040 as per the City’s Comprehensive Plan.

Tree canopy coverage increased in 2023 to 26.5%.

Tree canopy may be influenced year to year by many factors outside of the control of the City such as weather, storms, development, and disease. The City works to increase its tree canopy through several efforts including tree giveaways, planting projects, and educational outreach on tree related issues.

To calculate overall tree canopy, the City uses a web-based software tool, i-Tree Canopy, developed by the USDA Forest Service and their partners at www.itreetools.org, and current aerial images from Google Maps utilizing an ESRI Shapefile of the City boundaries.