Land Cover & Canopy Assessment

Generate summaries of heat by land cover, tree canopy, or land use to examine trends and opportunities to influence land development and zoning policy. Understand how vegetation and surface materials influence heat trends in your area. 

Deliverable

Report detailing relationship between land cover, tree canopy, and heat, spatial assets with metadata.

Process

Analyze the relationship between natural hazards of concern  and up to 10 land cover classes.

Impacts

Evidence base

Adaptation insights

Development targets

Report Sample

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Project Example

Pierce County, WA

CAPA conducted a canopy analysis for Pierce County, using tens of thousands of heat measurements collected by community members during the summer of 2024 via the CAPA Heat Watch mobile mapping campaign. The analysis assessed the relationships between heat, existing canopy cover (34% area-wide), and impervious surfaces (30% area-wide). This assessment was performed at both the scale of the entire study area and within eight specific sub-areas, revealing patterns like cooler zones in high-canopy parks and warmer zones in high-impervious industrial areas. The analysis resulted in spatial data products and specific recommendations for Pierce County, identifying opportunities for targeted heat mitigation actions such as prioritizing canopy expansion in hot, low-canopy areas, reducing impervious surfaces, and implementing non-vegetative shade solutions.