Tag: urban forests

Posted on

Urban Forests & Climate Change: Urban Forest Project Protocol

Adapted from:” McPherson, E.G.; J.R. Simpson; P.J. Peper; and E. Aguaron. 2008. Urban Forestry and Climate Change. Albany, CA: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. Available at: http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc/topics/urban-forests/

The Urban Forest Project Protocol, one of many protocols developed by the Climate Action Reserve, seeks to increase carbon storage by urban trees and quantify how tree planting, maintenance, and improved management activities reduce greenhouse gases. The Protocol provides detailed guidance to ensure that tree projects meet eligibility requirements, produce …

Posted on

Urban Forests and Pollution

Written by Melanie Lenart, University of Arizona
Urban trees play multiple roles when it comes to local air pollution. While trees in general help reduce air pollution, including absorbing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, some species contribute to local smog by emitting volatile organic carbons (VOCs). Planting locations of individual trees and species selection make a difference in the overall pollution balance.

Many urban trees help clear the air of pollution, although some are better at it than others (Table …

Posted on

Urban Forests and Heat Waves

Written by Melanie Lenart

Recent research suggests the extra heating measured in cities operates, at least to some degree, at the scale of neighborhoods. In hot desert cities, such as Phoenix, Arizona, an urban forest can help keep neighborhood temperatures from reaching dangerous highs during hot summer days, particularly during heat waves.

The extra heating load that comes from replacing natural vegetation with the buildings, streets, and sidewalks that comprise cities has been recognized for many decades. Cities often average …

Posted on

Designing Urban Forests

 

Trees add texture and services (shade and temperature modification) in urban environments. (Photo by Rod Kindlund).

Urban forestry managers can find it useful to assess their cities’ programs using a cost-benefit analysis, many of which have been incorporated into the free online tool iTree, developed by the U.S. Forest Service with collaborators. Species selection can influence both the quantitative and qualitative values of the urban forest as discussed below.

The Importance of Diversity

The metaphor comparing biological diversity …

Posted on

Cost-Benefit Approach to Urban Forests: A Western Analysis

 

Urban tree programs have expenses for planting, maintenance, even sidewalk repair. Yet the benefits of urban trees in five western cities analyzed outweighed the costs by ratios of 1.37 to 3.09.

For the analysis, samples of 30 to 70 randomly selected trees from each of the most abundant species were surveyed in five cities: Fort Collins, Colorado; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Bismarck, North Dakota; Berkeley, California; and Glendale, Arizona. All of these cities were surveyed by the U.S. Forest Service during the …

Posted on

Trees and Local Temperature

Trees shading parking lot.
Figure 1. Trees shade an urban parking lot.

Written by Melanie Lenart

Urban forests can help keep cities within a healthy temperature range, although the exact temperature reduction from urban forests is difficult to measure. The extent of the effect varies in space and in time, which complicates the issue, but large parks or tracts of urban trees can cool daytime summer air temperatures by about 10°F (McPherson and Simpson 1995).

Increasing the green cover of cities by 10% or …

Posted on

Climate Mitigation by Urban Forests

 

Planting trees in urban areas can help mitigate carbon dioxide levels because trees can sequester carbon and offset some energy use for cooling, as some studies have illustrated in California.

urban trees The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB32) requires a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. This amounts to a reduction of 173 million metric tons from the level projected for 2020.

Aerial photography revealed 242 million potential sites for planting individual trees …

Posted on

Urban Forests and Climate Change

Adapted from: McPherson, E.G., J.R. Simpson, P.J. Peper, and E. Aguaron. 2008. Urban Forestry and Climate Change. Albany, CA: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc/topics/urban-forests/

Urban forests can be useful both in mitigating climate change and in helping cities adapt to higher temperatures and other impacts of climate change. Urban trees reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the air by sequestering carbon dioxide and by reducing the amount of energy needed to heat and cool buildings. These …

Posted on

Calculating Carbon Drawdown by Trees

Adapted from: McPherson, E.G.; J.R. Simpson,; P.J. Peper; and E. Aguaron. 2008. Urban Forestry and Climate Change. Albany, CA: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. Available at: http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc/topics/urban-forests/

The Center for Urban Forest Research (CUFR) provides a tool for assessing the greenhouse gas drawdown in urban forests, the CUFR Tree Carbon Calculator (CTCC). It is the only tool approved by the Climate Action Reserve’s Urban Forest Project Protocol for quantifying carbon dioxide sequestration from greenhouse gas tree-planting …

Proudly powered by WordPress