Ypsilanti, MI Green Infrastructure Toolkit (GrIT) Example

Sinks: The Sinks layer shows where water is likely to pool during heavy rainfall events. Sinks represent particularly low-labor and low-cost opportunities for reducing runoff through planting deep-rooted vegetation (incl. trees), mowing less, and/or depaving.

Tree Canopy: The Tree Canopy layer identifies where tree canopy is present within an area of interest. The layer can be used for direct visualization or as an input for various other studies, such as comparing canopy coverage from one neighborhood to another. The Tree Canopy layer can be compared to the Land Surface Temperature (Surface Temp) layer to mitigate heat islands. Or, tree canopy (or lack thereof) can be integrated into green stormwater infrastructure design.

Non-Canopy Veg: The Non-Canopy Vegetation layer identifies vegetated areas that lack trees. It is essentially a tree canopy gap analysis except that it goes even further and identifies potential tree planting locations that do not require costly depaving. The Non-Canopy Vegetation layer can help decision-makers to quickly pinpoint low-cost, high-impact tree planting opportunities. For example, this layer can help maximize the positive impacts of limited funds for heat island mitigation and/or green stormwater infrastructure design.

Runoff Channels: This layer shows where runoff is most likely to flow and channelize during heavy rainfall events. Smaller tributaries are shown in very light blue and the channels they flow into are shown in darker blue. Arrows indicating flow direction are also included. Green infrastructure can be most effective when installed in these channels, especially just before channels flow onto paved/impervious surfaces (i.e. "veg the edge"). Only the higher flow channels are shown when the map is zoomed out. In this way the channels are not excessively crowded and still provide usable information at low zoom levels.

Surface Temp: This layer displays remotely estimated land surface temperature. Red areas indicate hotter temperatures whereas blue areas indicate cooler. Any red area can be considered a heat island. This layer is from June 25, 2025 and has a temperature range from 81 to 103 F.