In 2003, a new partnership between Southern California’s state land conservancies and the University of Southern California’s Center for Sustainable Cities and GIS Research Laboratory, was forged to create a visionary plan and practical planning tools to promote habitat conservation, watershed health and recreational open space.

The result is the Green Visions Plan for 21st Century Southern California.

Our website offers information on the Green Vision Plan and its framework, our collaborating partners and scientific team, and the Green Visions work program. In addition, you can download Green Visions Plan technical reports, and learn how to get involved in the Green Visions planning process. Our latests news is announced below.

New Watershed Assets Report

We are pleased to announce that a Public Review Draft of a new report, Watershed Assets Assessment, is now posted on the Green Visions Plan website at http://www.greenvisionsplan.net/html/publications.html.

This report provides the hydrologic assets assessment for the GVP study area. The assessment describes the current conditions of the watershed, the human modifications that have been made to the system, and to what extent hydrologic characteristics have been altered in changing flow regimes, flow paths, water quality and groundwater storage etc.  The hydrologic assets inventory will provide principal information for watershed projects such as prioritization of riparian land acquisition, storm water park sites selection, concrete flood control channel removal, dam removal, underground storm drains daylightening, and riparian habitat restoration and so on. This report is intended to support and inform regional wide planning efforts from the perspective of watershed health assessment

This is a Public Review Draft, so please send any questions, comments, corrections, or suggestions on the report to Jingfen Sheng (sheng@usc.edu; 213-821-1313).  Your input is important, especially in light of the large study area.  Please provide your input by March 15, 2008, after which the report will be finalized.

Please send any comments to:

Dr. Jingfen Sheng
3620 S Vermont Ave.
Los Angeles, CA  90089
(213)821.1313  phone
(213)740.8969  fax

Park Congestion and Strategies to Increase Equity

We are pleased to announce the availability of a Public Review Draft of a new report on inequities in urban park access in the Green Visions Plan study area, Park Congestion and Strategies to Increase Park Equity, is now posted on the Green Visions Plan website at http://www.greenvisionsplan.net/html/publications.html.

Many neighborhoods of southern California are park-poor, and policy makers face the challenge of understanding in which communities scarce parkland acquisition dollars should be allocated. This report presents a pragmatic approach to assist planners in addressing distributional inequities in park access. Delineating a ‘park service area’ for each park that includes all residents for whom that park is the closest, the report describes the potential park congestion – or ‘pressure’ – characterizing each park service area across the region.  Results show that Latinos, and to some extent African-Americans, and low-income groups were likely to live close to parks with higher park pressure levels.  On the other hand, predominantly White, high-income areas are typically located close to parks with lower park pressure levels.  The park service area analysis facilitates the identification of areas with greater park need and provides a pragmatic way to redress existing disparities in park access.  This analytic approach is built into a set of web-based decision support tools available at http://gv-server.usc.edu/GVWebTools_public_v2/viewer4.16/signIn.asp.

This is a Public Review Draft, so please send any questions, comments, corrections, or suggestions on the report to Jennifer Wolch (wolch@usc.edu; 213-740-0521).  Your input is important, especially in light of the large study area.  Please provide your input by January 15, 2008, after which the report will be finalized.

Please send any comments to:

Dr. Jennifer Wolch
Director, Center for Sustainable Cities
USC Department of Geography
413 Kapreilian Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90089

Online Planning Toolkit is Live

A central part of the Green Visions Plan is the provision of a set of online planning tools that allow users to access geographic information about habitat, watershed, and recreational assets and opportunities. This toolkit is now live at this link.

Historical Ecology Study Describes San Gabriel River
Historical wetland types and plant species can guide restoration planning for region.

Click here to download report and appendices.

A collaborative group including the Southen California Coastal Water Research Project, California State University Northridge, San Francisco Estuary Institute, Los Angeles and San Gabriel Watershed Council, and GVP researchers has completed an extensive new study of the wetland and upland natural communities associated with the San Gabriel River across the coastal plain.

Room to Move, Room to Improve
New USC study takes a close look at region’s parks, sees inequity in a land of plenty.

Click here to download report

Even though greater Los Angeles has some exceptional parks and open spaces, many southland residents do not have easy access to recreational green space, according to a new Green Visions Plan study. The report is the first study to comprehensively assess parks and recreational open space assets in the Los Angeles region.

Findings reveal that while the region’s park assets are extensive, primarily because of its many nearby national forests and wilderness recreation areas, the resources are unevenly distributed. The data collected in the inventory show that older, more heavily populated communities of the region have smaller parks, and older and lower-income communities have more poorly maintained park facilities.

And while newer suburban areas boast parks of larger-than-average size, many of these offered fewer amenities for active recreation and sports than their more urban counterparts.

In another finding, researchers say that only 24 percent of all parks appear to be easily accessed by public transit, possibly barring many transit-dependent residents from visiting their local and regional parks.

“Parks and open space are vital to the quality of life for urban residents and to public health. Moreover, they can enhance the ecological functioning of the entire metropolitan area,” said Wolch, who discussed the report at the Los Angeles County 5th Annual Park Summit.

For the inventory, researchers set out four specific goals: (1) to identify and map all known parks and open spaces in the study area; (2) to characterize park facilities, amenities, and condition based on both field and Internet audits; (3) to assess parks in terms of their potential role in habitat conservation and watershed protection; and (4) to provide basic parks data for use in GVP studies of park equity and in the development of innovative decision-support tools for local public agencies and community based organizations.

In all, more than 1,800 parks and other recreational open spaces were inventoried and assessed via Web sites, and of those, over 360 were audited through field visits. Data collected revealed whether or not the parks had bathrooms and trash cans, basketball courts and baseball diamonds, nature trails and golf courses, play equipment and benches. The proportion of ground covered in cement and other ecological attributes of the sites were also assessed, along with the conditions of the facilities, the amount of litter on the ground, parking availability, the presence of indigenous oak and sycamore trees and more.

Maps of Target Species Habitat Now Available

GVP research previously identified 40 target species to aid in conservation planning for the region (see Terrestrial Target Species for Habitat Conservation Planning). These species represent a range of tolerance to urbanization and form the basis for a multiple-species approach to identifying important lands for conservation.

The Conservation Biology Institute, working in conjunction with GVP researchers, has completed predictive habitat maps for these 40 terrestrial species and for 6 additional aquatic species. The full report, Target Species Habitat Mapping, is now available for download. This report includes maps that predict species distributions based on vegetation type, configuration, and isolation and reflect the input of nearly two dozen species experts. Aquatic species maps are based on expert knowledge.

Overlays of these maps with a database of protected lands shows what parts of the region have high density of target species but are not currently protected. For example, the map to the right shows protected species density in shades of green and unprotected species density in shades of red for the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy territory.