User talk:Sataylor19/sandbox

Tree Credit Draft

Tree credit systems for development sites to encourage the preservation of existing trees, as well as the planting of new trees, have also been designed at the local, state, and national scale. Many of these systems assess the benefit of individual trees. Still, additional interest is growing for the development of ways to assess the benefits of cumulative tree cover over entire sites. These credit systems aim to quantify the services provided by trees to treat stormwater and preserve water quality, air quality, and carbon sequestration.[1] The credits allow site designers to subtract area from total site area or impervious area when calculating water quality volume (WQv) and/or recharge volume (REv) and encourage the use of trees as an alternative practice to reduce runoff. There is no consistent calculation system of benefits across these credit systems because tree benefits can vary with size, species, climate, etc. Two common types of credit are impervious surface reduction and volume reduction. [2]

Impervious Surface Reduction Credit

Impervious surface reduction is the most common credit where sites are credited with an impervious surface area reduction per tree. These credits are determined by the type of tree (evergreen, deciduous) with greater credit for evergreen trees and whether it is an existing or new tree (100-200 ft^2 for new trees or ½ of canopy area of existing trees). There is usually a maximum total tree credit awarded of 25% of the total impervious surface for a given site, and there is an eligibility requirement for trees within a specific distance of existing impervious surfaces (10-25 ft). These types of credits have been implemented over various municipalities across the U.S. (OR, CA, IN, WA, PA) within the last 20 years.[2]

Volume Reduction Credit

Another credit that can be a system implemented includes trees credited for volume reduction and are subtracted from runoff volumes based on retention value. In some areas, greater volume reduction credit is awarded for preserved trees overplanted trees, while in other areas, credits can instead be determined based on size with trees (Washington DC, GA, VT).[2]

--> Hi Sylvia! The content of all of your work looked great, so, instead, I ran this section through Grammarly and just "cleaned it up" a tad (primarily punctuation). One thing I was going to ask is about the beginning of the first paragraph "Tree credit systems". I think there may be a word missing? The very first part of the sentence just didn't quite make sense. Other than that, everything looks great. I just pasted the "updated" paragraphs above (the ones I ran through Grammarly).