Submission Date
4-25-2022
Document Type
Paper
Department
Environmental Studies
Adviser
Patrick Hurley
Committee Member
Tristan Ashcroft
Committee Member
Denise Finney
Department Chair
Patrick Hurley
Project Description
Food insecure environments, in which residents lack consistent access to nutritious food materials, can occur in urban settings. Literature on urban forests suggests that trees can provide a range of provisioning ecosystem services, including edible uses. We consider this to determine if street trees in Baltimore, Maryland have the potential to provide nutritious food materials to address food insecurity in Healthy Food Priority Areas (HFPA), designated by Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Our analysis utilizes the Plants For a Future database and the geospatial hotspot analysis tool in Esri’s ArcMap to determine the edible quality ratings (EQR) of street tree species and where these species cluster in the city in relation to the HFPA.
Recommended Citation
Bearden, Victoria, "Urban Forests and Their Potential to Combat Food Insecurity: Analyzing Street Trees in Baltimore, MD for Their Edibility" (2022). Environment and Sustainability Honors Papers. 10.
https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/environment_hon/10
Included in
Environmental Sciences Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Food Security Commons, Geographic Information Sciences Commons
