The objective of this project is to validate and demonstrate that urban forestry 1) is presently providing unaccounted Heat Island Effect (HIE) mitigation, 2) can be utilized by Department of Defense (DoD) personnel to address HIE on DoD installations, and 3) provides a positive return on investment. HIE is the phenomenon where developed areas are warmer than adjacent rural or natural areas because they lack nature based defensive infrastructure to provide shade. Heat is the leading cause of lost training days, and urban forestry is a low cost and highly efficient way of dealing with heat. Elevated temperatures can result in increased facility cooling, and subsequent energy, demands; they can also decrease training due to restrictions (black flag days) or injury (red flag days). These and other impacts directly and indirectly affect the training and testing mission of the DoD. However, many of the material and non-material technologies to reduce HIE have not been validated for DoD use.

i-Tree Tools will be used to demonstrate the efficacy of urban forestry for mitigating the negative impacts of HIEs on DoD installations. i-Tree Tools is a state-of-the-art, peer-reviewed, software suite developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and numerous collaborators that provide urban and rural forestry analysis and benefits assessment tools. It can be used to evaluate urban forestry energy savings in light of installation and maintenance costs, allowing life cycle cost-benefit analyses.

HIE-mitigating urban forestry can help maintain DoD readiness by providing a nature-based solution that reduces amplified heat island exposure effects to DoD installations and warfighters. The validation and demonstration of the technology of this project will provide DoD managers the possibility to do the following:

• Advance urban forestry mitigation of HIE.
• Increase urban forestry performance.
• Advance energy-use reduction.
• Facilitate DoD and non-DoD partnerships.

This demonstration will facilitate workflow deployment at three installations that represent a wide DoD parameter space where HIEs are anticipated. The framework from the project would be applicable for designing and estimating urban forestry HIE mitigation at approximately one-third of all continental U.S. DoD installations represented within the proposed Southeast region. (Anticipated Project Completion - 2028)