Environmental Benefits of Urban Trees Illustrated By Lucille's Nest

American Forests
Friday, 22 June 2001

In a tree box just outside of the Barr Building, an office building in downtown Washington, DC, and headquarters of American Forests (americanforests.org), a female mallard duck sits on ten eggs. It's an unlikely spot for a wild duck to nest. But for Lucille, the name given to her by local workers, it's as good a place as any to incubate her eggs.

Lucille's choice of a nesting spot sheds light on the important role city trees play in providing habitat for an array of urban wildlife. Birds, insects, squirrels, chipmunks, and even ducks rely on city trees for survival.

For the past five years, American Forests has been calculating the environmental and economic benefits urban trees provide in relation to the removal of pollutants, reducing stormwater runoff, and energy savings. In 1999, American Forests released an Urban Ecosystem Analysis of the Washington, DC, region that detailed the decline of urban tree canopy during a 24-year period. Between 1973-1997, tree cover declined from 37% in 1973 to 21% in 1997. American Forests recommends urban areas retain 40% tree cover.

American Forests showed the lost tree canopy would have removed 354,000 pounds of the pollutants: sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter from the atmosphere annually, at a value of approximately $996,000 per year. The study also found the total stormwater retention capacity of this urban forest cover in 1997 is an estimated $440 million, down from 1973's value of $666 million, based on the avoided cost of having to manage this stormwater.

This September, American Forests will host the National Urban Forest Conference in Washington, DC, which brings citizen activists, urban planners, engineers, foresters, and others together to discuss ways of improving the urban "green infrastructure." The Conference is held every other year by American Forests. Learn more about urban forestry at www.americanforests.org.

American Forests also plants trees worldwide for environmental restoration through its Global ReLeaf tree-planting program, which has planted more than 1 million trees in the Chesapeake Bay watershed since 1994.

For more information, or to contact American Forests, see their website at: www.americanforests.org