Urban Forests and Their Potential to Combat Food Insecurity: Analyzing Street Trees in Baltimore, MD for Their Edibility

Author

Victoria Bearden, Ursinus CollegeFollow

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