Urban ForestryJessica Debats
2015 The Garden Club of America Zone VI Fellowship in Urban Forestry
Jessica Debats is a doctoral candidate in Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. Her dissertation, “Seeing the City for the Trees: Public Space, Climate Adaptation, and Environmental Justice,” examines how New York and Los Angeles used public-private partnerships to mitigate the urban heat island through urban forestry, particularly in low-income, low-canopy neighborhoods. Using remote sensing, planting records, tax records, census data, and historical aerial photography, Jessica will analyze how the evolution of each city’s built environment shaped the plantings in public vs. private space and low vs. high income neighborhoods.
Funded by Casey Trees, Washington, DC, Zone VI
The Garden Club of America Zone VI Fellowship in Urban Forestry
To advance the field of urban forestry by encouraging students to study the planning, management, horticulture and ecology of urban forests, and the effect of healthy urban forests on people and the environment.
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