Mapping the Spatial Distribution
of Trees Around McCarren
Park in Brooklyn, New York
Columbia University
Fall 2022
What is the spatial distribution of trees around McCarren Park in Brooklyn, New York in 2015?
Do street trees increase in density the further you go from the park?
Are street trees concentrated around specific land uses?
The 2007 Million Trees Initiative is a city-wide public-private program enacted to promote a greener NYC by planting 1 million street trees. The goal of this mapping exercise is to evaluate the implementation of this program in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In the first map, I performed a Network Distance Analysis, and a Straight Line Distance Analysis to see if there was a correlation between street tree density and distance from the center of McCarren Park. The network distance analysis takes into consideration pedestrian pathways whereas a straight line distance buffer utilizes concentric circles relative to the center of the park. My analysis found that street trees increase in density up to the 3/8 mile buffer before thinning out in the outer buffers
Read the full report here
Applications
ArcGIS Pro, Adobe Illustrator, NYC Open Data
Methods
Network Distance Modelling, straight line distance modelling, spatial statistics, average nearest neighbor test, Getis-Ord Gi* statistics test, network service area analysis, proportional split analysis