Decatur Trees: A Short History
Decatur Metro | July 29, 2011 | 9:59 am
Neil sends in this interesting short history of the Decatur area’s tree canopy and provides a link to maps – like the one above – showing tree canopies around the state of Georgia…
In the 19th century, DeKalb County was mostly farm land. As cotton became less profitable, dairy farming gained favor and by the early part of the 20th century DeKalb County was the largest dairy producing county in the country outside of Wisconsin. Much of the land in DeKalb and Decatur was open pasture. In aerial photos from 1925 20-30% of the land in Decatur was covered by the canopy of trees. This period was followed by growth of residential areas around Decatur. Between the years 1920-55, before the advent of air conditioning, it was common to plant or encourage large overstory trees around your home to reduce summer heat and block cold breezes in the winter. There were also a large number of planned neighborhoods that included tree landscaping. Trees also grew in spaces that were not being managed. In 2001 the City of Decatur Canopy Coverage was estimated using satellite data at 50%. Sometime in the last twenty years canopy coverage has been decreasing. While there are not numbers for Decatur, in DeKalb County between 1991 and 2005 total tree canopy was reduced from 51% to 44% while impervious (covered by cement) has increased by 62% from 14% to 21%.
A couple points to consider– based on the patterns of development before the housing bubble debacle, south Dekalb has lost a lot of tree cover. Also, there was a major tornado that took down tons of trees in Dunwoody in 1998.
Where did this mapping information come from, perhaps we could get a detailed report extracted from it for Decatur, by going to the source.
Tree cover + Impervious adds up to 65% of the land mass in both scenarios above. What does the report consider to be the other 35%-buildings?
Nice work Neil !!
Sorry, I forgot to add the link to the original post. It’s there now!
Thanks ! I visited the link and expanded the map area for Decatur. It shows canopy cover % for 1991 51% and 2001 50% for just Decatur.
I wonder if they will do another estimate soon, seems to be on a ten year schedule.
It has been mentioned before, but the reduction in tree canopy likely has a lot to do with the popularity of water oak plantings in the first half of the 20th century. The natural life span of a water oak in urban conditions is unlikely to be longer than 100 years. We are seeing the predictable decline of one of the most commont trees in the county’s canopy.