Communities

Agroforestry can help connect urban and suburban communities to the surrounding rural landscape. This connectivity helps filter storm water runoff, provides travel corridors for wildlife, creates recreational space, and improves air and water quality for the whole watershed. Cumulatively, these functions contribute to the overall health and sustainability of a community and its neighbors.

Adapting Designs and Methods to Benefit Communities

Community graphic. — Agroforestry provides perennial trees, shrubs, and grasses on the landscape. These serve both rural and urban communities by protecting air and water quality and providing green space for people and wildlife. (USDA National Agroforestry Center illustration)

The designs and methods used to plan and manage agroforestry systems can be adapted and applied to a wide range of community contexts. For example, agroforestry practices can add benefits to tree planting efforts, including food production, climate change adaptation and mitigation, water quality improvements, and sound, odor, and dust control. When planning agroforestry systems in communities, consideration must be given to sources of runoff, hydrologic flow paths and uptake of water and nutrients by trees, shrubs and grasses. Buffers can be designed to both reduce storm water volume and improve water quality for the over all watershed.

This integrated approach to land management can enhance the benefits of green infrastructure. The increasing popularity of urban agriculture and food forests provides new opportunities to incorporate trees and perennial plants into our communities and landscapes. This can happen at a variety of scales, ranging from the design of green infrastructure on a street to larger landscapes, such as a park or greenway. Agroforestry practices have particular relevance to the rural-urban interface, where they can provide significant environmental benefits while allowing the land to remain economically and socially productive.

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Adapting Designs and Methods to Benefit Communities

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