Document Type
Paper- Restricted to Campus Access
Publication Date
4-22-2021
Faculty Mentor
Tristan Ashcroft
Abstract
To address the question of the potential to tackle food insecurity using urban foraging, we conducted an analysis using Esri’s ArcMap on two United States cities, Baltimore, Maryland and the borough of Queens, New York City, New York. Urban foraging is the practice of harvesting raw biological resources that can have edible uses. We conducted the study on Baltimore by using street tree and food desert datasets to determine the amount of forageable species found within food desert regions that could potentially combat food insecurity in these areas. For Queens, we performed an analysis to explore the accessibility to three highly forageable street tree (HFST) species to combat health issues perpetrated by food swamps. We determined that out of the 121,744 total trees found in Baltimore, 17,982 of the forageable street trees are found in regions of food insecurity. In Queens, of 250,385 total trees, 5,022 HFST are within ¼ mile of food swamps. 17.7% of Baltimore’s forageable trees were found in areas of food insecurity, and 2% of Queens’ HFST, within ¼ mile of food swamps.
Recommended Citation
Bearden, Victoria and Cooney, Kristen, "Potential of Urban Foraging to Combat Food Insecurity in Cities" (2021). Environment and Sustainability Presentations. 8.
https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/environment_pres/8
Restricted
Available to Ursinus community only.
Comments
Presented as part of the Ursinus College Celebration of Student Achievement (CoSA) held April 22, 2021.
The downloadable file is a poster presentation with audio commentary with a run time of 3:45.