Background

Soil is the foundation of life. It has great potential to mitigate current and future climate impacts by sequestering carbon, improving water supply and water quality, supporting plant growth, enhancing food production, and maintaining healthy communities, especially in urban and peri-urban areas where more than 80% of Americans live, work, and play.

About the Initiative

The objectives of the “Healthy Soils for Healthy Communities Initiative” include:

1. Elevating healthy soils as the “brown” in green infrastructure policy, planning, management, and investments in both the built and natural environments;
2. Increasing public and policy-maker awareness of the importance and potential of healthy soils in building climate resilience, sustaining urban ecosystem functions, and enhancing public health;
3. Conducting cutting-edge science and research that gets used to fill the information gaps;
4. Facilitating policy changes to promote and support healthy urban soil projects; and
5. Empowering communities with science-based information, best management practices, and practical tools.

About Phase One: Needs Assessment

As the first phase of the initiative, we conducted a needs assessment aiming to: 1) determine the current status of Los Angeles’s urban soil health; 2) identify the most pressing urban soil issues and community needs through community consultation and outreach; and 3) provide a framework for future work regarding urban soil research, policy, public education and community engagement in the region.

3nd Los Angeles Urban Soil Symposium - 2022

Building Climate Resilience through Urban Soils

Our health and well-being in urban southern California are beset by an array of environmental threats and challenges being amplified by the unfolding climate crisis. We increasingly turn to nature-based solutions to address these threats and challenges while creating healthy and resilient communities for all. The soil beneath our feet is a critical resource in realizing the potential for natured-based solutions to address our needs and wants for our neighborhoods, our region, and the planet. To realize the potential of soil in cities, soil requires intentional management to both redress legacies that impair soil health and function and to steward soils to serve the ambitious goals we have for our urban ecosystems. Here we present the case as to how soil is, in fact, the very foundation of nature-based solutions. To build this foundation, we share soil best management practices that will help generate healthy, just, and resilient communities.

Program

• 9:00 Kickoff:
  • Dustin Herrmann (Principal Scientist, TreePeople)
  • Building Climate Resilience through Urban Soils

• 9:15 Opening Keynotes:
  • —Cindy Montanez (CEO, TreePeople)—
  • —Councilmember Nithya Raman (LA City Council, 4th District)—
  • —TBD Senator Ben Allen (CA Senate, 26th District) &
  • CDFA Healthy Soils Rep—

• 9:30 Rich Pouyat (Scientist Emeritus, US Forest Service)
  • Which and How: Putting Together Urban Soil BMP Ensembles for
  • Multi-benefit Nature-based Solutions

• 10:00 Susan Day (Professor, The University of British Columbia)
  • Operationalizing Climate Resilience through BMP Policy

• 10:15 Yujuan Chen (Associate Professor, Tennessee State University)
  • BMP for Climate Resilience Case Study: Soil Profile Rebuilding

• —————-10:30 BREAK———————
• 10:40 Lynn Fang (Soil + Compost Specialist, LA Compost)
  • BMP demonstration: Urban Carbon Farm

• 10:50 Alejandro Fabian (Community Organizer, Independent)
  • BMP demonstration: Healthier parkway trees through soil management

• 11:00 Daniel Hirmas (Associate Professor, UC Riverside)
  • Optimizing soil structure for multi-benefit nature-based solutions

• 11:15 Kirsten Schwarz (Associate Professor, UCLA)
  • Community-led urban soil transformations

• 11:30 Open forum
• 11:50 Closing remarks, Andy Lipkis (Project Executive, Accelerate Resilience LA)
• 12:00 END

About Phase Two: Los Angeles Urban Soil Collaborative - Soil Connects Us All

As the second phase of the initiative, we are establishing a Los Angeles Urban Soil Collaborative to serve as a framework for the following main activities: best management practices, demonstration projects, public education, community engagement, capacity building, and strategic planning and scaling up. Three demonstration projects include: 1) Parkway Potential for Climate-Resilience: Utilizing Soil Management to Strengthen Green-Blue-Brown Infrastructure in the City; 2) Community-Based Soil Sampling: Grassroots Responses for Site-Specific Soil Management; and 3) Urban Carbon Farms – Urban Soil Carbon Sequestration Assessment in LA.

Our Team

• Project Team

• • Deborah Stephens Browder | TreePeople
  • Stephen Salazar Ceasar | TreePeople
  • Dr. Yujuan Chen | TreePeople
  • Mario Dagonel | TreePeople
  • Dr. Susan D. Day | University of British Columbia
  • Jaime Del Rio | TreePeople
  • Edith B. de Guzman | TreePeople and 
University of California, Los Angeles
  • Kenny Derieg | TreePeople
  • Alejandro Fabian | TreePeople
  • Lynn Fang | LA Compost
  • Kevin Gaston | TreePeople Land Trust
  • Manny Gonez | TreePeople
  • Callie Ham | Kiss the Ground
  • Dr. Daniel Hirmas | University of California, Riverside
  • Christyne Imhoff | TreePeople
  • Selena Mao | TreePeople and University of California, Los Angeles
  • Bryan Medina | TreePeople
  • Cindy Montañez | TreePeople
  • Dr. Richard V. Pouyat | Chesapeake Bay Career Consulting
  • Mark Pranger | LA Compost
  • Dr. Gordon L. Rees | California Polytechnic State University
  • Dr. Kirsten Schwarz | University of California, Los Angeles
  • Lia Soorenian | TreePeople
  • Miguel Vargas | TreePeople
  • Ariel Lew Ai Le Whitson | TreePeople
  • Dr. Erica L. Wohldmann | California State University, Northridge

• Steering Committee

• • Dr. Yujuan Chen | TreePeople
  • Dr. Susan D. Day | University of British Columbia
  • Lynn Fang | LA Compost
  • Dr. Daniel Hirmas | University of California, Riverside
  • Ansu John | Community Healing Garden
  • Nicole Landers | Nicole Landers Consulting
  • Finian Makepeace | Kiss the Ground
  • Rachel Malarich | City of Los Angeles
  • Dr. Stephanie Pincetl | University of California, 
Los Angeles
  • Dr. Richard V. Pouyat | Chesapeake Bay Career Consulting
  • Randy Riddle | USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service
  • Dr. Michele Romolini | Loyola Marymount University
  • Dr. Kirsten Schwarz | University of California, 
Los Angeles
  • Dr. Eric G. Strauss | Loyola Marymount University

Funding Agency

Accelerate Resilience L.A. (ARLA), a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors