• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20 March 20, 2023
Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action March 20, 2023
Window for 1.5°C ‘Rapidly Closing’, IPCC Warns March 20, 2023
Swift Action, Inclusive Resilience Vital in Face of Overlapping Climate Hazards March 20, 2023
Shift from Fossils to Renewables is Quickest, Cheapest Path to Cut Emissions, IPCC Report Shows March 20, 2023
Next
Prev

City trees boost health and wealth

August 29, 2017
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

Capital city trees could deliver even more capital. Green fingers could convert urban grime into folding money and combat global warming at the same time.

LONDON, 29 August, 2017 – Here’s how to make big money in the modern megalopolis: plant more city trees. Tree-lined streets and leafy suburbs are already worth $500 million a year to the modern megacity, and civic authorities could branch out and make even more.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

It’s just a matter of recognising the economic benefits of literally turning over a new leaf. Trees deliver shade, they soak up carbon, they dispose of airborne pollution and they absorb water. In doing all this, they ameliorate climate, cut heating and air-conditioning costs, and improve public health.

The economic services provided by maples in Naples, Italy, or oaks in Oakland, California, are so pronounced that scientists have been able to set a value on the urban canopy.

They find that the average 39 square metres of tree cover per urban citizen are worth $35 to each megacity dweller. A square kilometre of trees in a big city is worth $1.2 million a year to the citizens who stroll beneath the branches.

And in a sample of 10 megacities – that is urban areas of 10 million people or more – the average value to each city of its standing woodland, parks and leafy avenues is $505m. And to make almost double the money, just plant more.

Increased well-being

“Megacities can increase these benefits on average by 85%,” said Theodore Endreny of the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York.

“If trees were established throughout their potential cover area, they would serve to filter air and water pollutants and reduce building energy use, and improve human well-being while providing habitat and resources for other species in the urban area.”

He and five colleagues from Italy report in the journal Ecological Modelling that they made an analysis of the actual and potential tree cover, and the contribution to what scientists like to call ecosystem services, in 10 megacities across five continents.

These are Beijing in China, Buenos Aires in Argentina, Cairo in Egypt, Istanbul in Turkey, London in Great Britain, Los Angeles in the US, Mexico City in Mexico, Moscow in Russia, Mumbai in India and Tokyo in Japan.

“A deeper awareness of the economic value of free services provided by nature may increase our willingness to invest efforts and resources”

That trees have value is long established: researchers have even been able to calculate their contribution to property values. Researchers have also demonstrated repeatedly that natural forests in different ways represent wealth for local populations and could if protected more efficiently deliver even more wealth.

But wild forest is being lost at an ever greater rate. So the latest study tried to put a value on the cash benefits delivered by trees in the cities.

The scientists calculated the levels of carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide and fine soots and particles from traffic and other sources that stuck to or were absorbed by trees in cities, the way trees insulated buildings against the cold and helped shade them in the heat, and the way trees absorbed the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, in just 10 great cities.

They found that humans profited richly from the pines, planes and palms that lined their city streets. On average, trees even saved city authorities $11m a year by soaking up stormwater that would otherwise have to be handled by the urban drains and sewers.

Bigger savings

That same transpiration of stormwater helped turn urban hot air into a cooler breeze that made the summer streets more welcoming.

In 2016, scientists counted 40 megacities, home to 722 million people. That is almost one tenth of the human population of the planet. In the selected 10 cities, on average trees covered 21% of the built-up zone and they could have shaded another 19%. The implication is that trees could save city dwellers a lot more money, just by colonising more of the urban jungle.

“Placing these results on the larger scale of socioeconomic systems makes evident to what extent nature supports our individual and community well-being by providing ecosystem services for free,” said Sergio Ulgiati of the University Parthenope in Naples, a co-author, who as a follow-up has with colleagues established an urban wellbeing laboratory in Naples.

“A deeper awareness of the economic value of free services provided by nature may increase our willingness to invest efforts and resources into natural capital conservation and correct exploitation, so that societal wealth, economic stability and well-being would also increase.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
31
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
49
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
27

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Prime Minister's Office/flickr

Biden’s Ottawa Visit Highlights EVs, Clean Grid, Critical Minerals

March 25, 2023
42
IFRC Intl. Federation:Twitter

Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action

March 21, 2023
907
Kenuoene/pixabay

Shift from Fossils to Renewables is Quickest, Cheapest Path to Cut Emissions, IPCC Report Shows

March 20, 2023
252
U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement/flickr

Willow Oil Project in Alaska Faces Legal Challenges, Economic Doubts

March 19, 2023
630
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board/flickr

$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’

March 14, 2023
351
EUMETSAT/wikimedia commons

Cyclone Freddy Leaves Over 500 Dead on Africa’s Southeast Coast

March 23, 2023
45

Recent Posts

TruckPR/flickr

Opinion: Hydrogen Hype Sabotages Potential to Decarbonize

March 25, 2023
5
Kern River Valley Fire Info/Facebook

SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20

March 20, 2023
296
U.S. National Park Service/rawpixel

Window for 1.5°C ‘Rapidly Closing’, IPCC Warns

March 20, 2023
84
FMSC/Flickr

Swift Action, Inclusive Resilience Vital in Face of Overlapping Climate Hazards

March 20, 2023
77
Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine/Wikimedia Commons

IPCC Report Charts a Course for Ottawa’s ‘Clean Technology’ Budget

March 23, 2023
180
Kiara Worth, UNClimateChange/flickr

Gap Between IPCC’s Science, National Actions Sets Challenge for COP 28

March 21, 2023
91
Next Post

Professor Dreams of Very, Very Big Wind Turbines

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}