Lincoln's Urban Forest

Lincoln’s urban forest: where does it stand? 

According to the Town’s tree assessment (Razaghirad, 2021), the canopy covers 21.4% (i.e., 35.4 km2) of the Town and includes all shade and ornamental trees and large non-crop shrubs in forested areas. It also includes isolated and small groups of trees located in urban parks and trees on private and public properties. Since fruit trees in orchards and grape vines provide fewer benefits and services (compared to other tree types), they were excluded from the tree cover estimate.

Lincoln’s urban forest is unevenly distributed because of agricultural activities within the Town, the dispersion and disjointedness of urban areas, and the existence of large tracks of natural forest. Most of the canopy is found along the Niagara Escarpment, consisting of 43% of the available canopy. As a result of the small size of the six urban areas in Lincoln, the canopy within these areas only represents 5% of the total canopy.