INDUSTRY
UGA helps Savannah's recovery
Creating green space and training future landscapers by Emily Woodward for CAES News “We’ve been looking at how much Savannah’s urban tree nursery had been lost over the decades,” says Nick Deffley, sustainability director for the city of Savannah and lead on the project. “We were losing a lot of trees to development, some were just getting old, and we had two hurricanes in the last three years that took a toll as well.” The hurricanes caused significant damage to Savannah’s tree canopy, with Hurricane Matthew costing over $13 million in tree debris removal and unknown losses in water storage from mature trees. Greg Huber (right) is shown teaching a class at the University of Georgia Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens. Participants attended a four-day training modeled after the Georgia Certified Landscape Professional (GCLP) program, which was developed by UGA Cooperative Extension’s Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin, Georgia. Huber leads the GCLP program.
Savannah, Georgia, lost hundreds of trees when Hurricane Matthew hit in
UAC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2019
October 2016, followed less than a year later by Hurricane Irma in September 2017.
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University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant is helping restore lost green space to decrease flood risk and to beautify barren spaces while training Savannah residents in landscape design and infrastructure improvements. The “Green Infrastructure to Green Jobs” initiative, funded by the Southeast Sustainable Communities Fund, will create urban tree nurseries in the city’s low-lying, flood-prone neighborhoods.
The city of Savannah owns more than 350 flood-prone Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) lots that are underutilized community assets. As coastal Georgia experiences extremes in weather, municipal governments are looking to green infrastructure, such as tree canopies, to improve their resilience to major storm events.
Engaging the community Deffley is working with a team of experts, including land-use and resiliency specialists at UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, to engage community members in the project, helping them to understand the risks they face and recognize the benefits of implementing green infrastructure, such as tree canopies. Over the course of the project, more than 500 trees will be planted by trainees in the Landscape Management Apprenticeship Program, an innovative workforcedevelopment program that trains residents in arbor care, plant identification, installation and maintenance.
