An Investigation of Evaluation Methods of Weighted-Point Landscaping Policy - in Seattle and Malmö

Urban vegetation plays an important role in influencing ecological function beyond the individual plant scale. City policies set required quantity and quality parameters for urban vegetation that determine the environmental and societal outcomes and ultimately affect urban residents’ wellbeing. The way urban vegetation policies are structured varies due to context but one structure that is primed for analysis, due to its clear outcome objectives and transparent structure, is the use of a weighted-point system landscape policy. The objective of this thesis is to test the applicability of a methodological evaluation of weighted-point landscaping policy by inventorying in two locations Seattle, Washington and Malmö, Sweden, the quantity and quality of vegetated outcomes at different points of time. The weighed-point landscaping policy is a structure containing a menu of obligatory landscaping options to fulfill defined requirements organized by point calculations for built environment, applies each intended to produce specific urban vegetation outcomes. Despite the intention, outcomes from urban vegetation policy vary in implementation and maintenance over time. Evaluation of the required outcomes hold relevant stakeholders accountable by inventorying fulfillment and deviation from policy intentions. Evaluative methodology and methods are tested to formalize the cyclical relationship between actual policy outcomes and feedback to improve the policy. The feedback from these methods have the potential to inform policy success over time. Two methods, a supervised Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA) and a vertical structure inventory, have the promise to be effective measurement tools given carefully chosen considerations and inputs. Applying these methods has the potential to inform a modified-BAR vegetation indicator useful for comprehensively referencing the quantity and quality of urban vegetation outcomes from weighted-point landscaping policy. In this thesis, the referenced two methods are used to analyze projects across three time periods and two weighted-point landscaping policy contexts. Lessons learned from this analysis provides a preliminary frame work for generating feedback of the policy’s outcomes to inform policy makers and relevant stakeholders.

Author dc:creator

• Hoff, Josh

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Alberti, Marina

• Urban planning

Statement dc:rights

• none

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1773/41848

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digital.lib.washington.edu:1773/41848