TREES A GROWING ASSET
A properly maintained urban and community forest: increases
property values, lowers energy costs, reduces air pollution and sediment
runoff, and attracts tourists and new businesses.
Why plant trees?
| - Planting trees now reduces the need for additional power plants
which reduces utility costs now and in the future. |
- Three well-placed mature trees around a
house can cut air-conditioning costs by ten to fifty percent.
- Urban trees are at least fifteen times greater than forest
trees in helping the environment.
- Trees affect climates and building energy use in two ways.
Direct benefits accrue from the shade that trees provide
to buildings and surfaces. By blocking solar radiation,
trees prevents structures and surfaces from heating up beyond
the ambient air temperature. Indirectly, trees cool buildings
by cooling the air surrounding them through evapotranspiration.
In a process similar to sweating, trees use heat to evaporate
water from a leaf before it can heat the air, thus cooling
the air immediately around the leaf. The cumulative effect
of many leaves can cool the air in a large area. - Shade
trees can cool a home by as much as eight degrees in the
summer.
- Trees and other plant materials slow down winds thereby
reducing winter fuel bills from 10 -40 %. |
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- Planting trees at our schools and playgrounds will reduce sunburns
and future skin cancer problems. And it's also more fun to play
in the shade of a tree in the hot summer months!
- Trees improve air quality by producing oxygen and by taking
up carbon dioxide which they store in their wood.
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- One mature tree absorbs approximately 13 pounds (some
research says up to 48 pounds) of carbon dioxide per year.
- One mature tree removes 1.47 tons of carbon dioxide
and replaces it with 1.07 tons of oxygen.
- Forest Service researchers estimate that today's U.S.
community forests save at least $2 billion a year in air-conditioning
energy expenditures alone. A modest investment in improved
care and management of those community forests could double
the value of those annual energy savings.
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- Trees reduce runoff during rainstorms seven to twelve percent,
thereby reducing stormwater system and treatment needs.
- Tree watering use is compensated by an approximately sixteen
percent reduction in water needs elsewhere in the landscape due
to microclimate changes.
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| - A newly planted fifteen gallon tree requires approximately
15 gallons of water each week which equates to two toilet
flushes |
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| - Trees and other landscaping can increase property values by
five to ten percent. |
- If property value is increased five percent by trees
property taxes are also increased roughly five percent which
equates to a $25 increase in revenue on $500/year taxable
property.
- Anaheim currently has approximately 35,000 street trees.
These trees are valued at roughly $59,500,000 if an average
tree value of $1700 is used. If this value is increased
five percent annually the annual value increase of our city's
street trees is $2,975,000. With the city spending only
$1,200,000 per year (which equates to only 2% per year of
their value) on tree maintenance this equates to a 148%
return for every dollar spent on tree care! |
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- The average American uses (each year) the equivalent of one
tree, 100 feet tall and 16 inches in diameter to fulfill his or
her wood and paper needs.
- Trees are a part of a city's infrastructure, and if properly
planted and maintained they appreciate in value while other components
of the infrastructure depreciate.
- Massive tree planting programs can revitalize our dying urban
forests, while sponsoring community cooperation and civic pride.
- Trees provide habitat for wildlife and birds, and may inspire
feelings of relaxation and happiness in humans
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What a different place our world would be if each person
would plant trees to purify the air and trap dust, help create "greenbelts"
to fight smog, plant green sound barriers to abate noise, install shrubs
and ground covers to stop erosion and help clean our rivers, plant shade
trees to conserve air conditioning energy in the summer, windbreaks
to save precious heating fuel in winter, and join with others to create
micro-environments to feed the spirit. (Lederer 1978)
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