Yashas Basavarajappa: Effectiveness of Urban Forestry

Hi, everyone.

My name is Yasha spots for Joppa, and my project

is focused on the effectiveness of urban forestry.

I wanted to research how effective trees actually were in

reducing environmental pollution in urban areas, and also I wanted

to determine the overall public opinion regarding urban fourths and

whether a general consensus was even possible.

So the reason I chose this topic was because I'm

in the Global Pathways program and for my travel component.

I visited India, where I worked with a local village

to help plant trees and surrounding neighbourhood.

And when I came back, I knew for my capstone

project that I wanted to research something environmentally related.

I sent it on the topic of urban forestry because

I wonder why there wasn't an abundance of trees and

cities. Was it just not cost effective, or was it

just because there was no real motivation to do so?

Ah, global warming and pollution aren't really visible to the

eye, so it's easy to just push those issues to

the side.

And I wanted to research something to try to await

raise awareness of that.

So one of the main goals of my secondary research

was to research the pros and cons of having trees

and cities.

I went into a lot of independent studies in long

term experiments to analyze the effects that urban trees have

on their surroundings.

Many experiments were done in different cities, and these cities

had their own unique variables that I had to keep

in mind when analyzing them.

For instance, trees in Los Angeles are capable and moving

much more pollution than trees in Minneapolis, for instance, because

Minneapolis has a much colder climate and shorter in leaf

season. Ah, specifically, I researched.

I mainly researched how Cherie's help reduce air temperature and

how that helps to improve air quality so urban to

urban areas today cover less than 5% of Earth's surface.

Yet they have profound ecological effects on the planet.

One such asset of trees to help mitigate these effects

is that trees usually contribute to cooler air temperatures, and

these cooler temperatures can lead to decreased ozone formation.

Reduced air temperature also improves air quality because the emission

of many pollutants are actually temperature dependent.

For instance, vo ces are compounds that easily can become

gases such as pesticide, cigarettes, smokes, vehicle exhausts and a

number of other consumer products.

However, vio SI emissions are directly dependent on air temperature.

So if enough trees are present to reduce air temperature,

vio si emissions would in turn decrease further helping the

environment. Trees can also help reduce the effects of a

Nerb in heat island, and an urban heat island is

created when natural vegetative surfaces are replaced by water resistant

surfaces such as asphalt.

These surfaces absorb a high percentage of solar radiation and

increase the overall island temperature significantly.

Urban heat island conditions have been observed in New York

City for quite some time, actually, and on average during

the summer.

Specific heat islands such as northwestern Brooklyn, eastern Queens and

South Bronx are 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than their surrounding

areas. And these numbers can be further increased during periodic

heat waves where there's little to no rain rainfall.

And apart from other heat mitigation strategies, planting street trees

is an effective way of reducing the temperature due to

the natural shade that they provide.

It's found that below small groups of trees over grass

midday Aaron air temperatures at just 1.5 meters meters above

the ground.

Our 0.70 re Celsius to 1.3 degrees Celsius cooler Dan

in open areas Ah, part from reducing air temperature trees

are also effective at in taking co two and generally

reducing air pollution.

Dr Rita Peralte of Bologna's Institute of Bio Meteorology conducted

a study that compiled an entire list of trees most

effectively suited towards reducing pollution.

Ah, species such as the field elm and Norway maple

were measured to be most effective at absorbing CO two,

whereas other species like the large leaf linden, were measured

to be highly capable of removing urban smog and by

utilizing study cities in the future could plant specific trees

geared towards combating specific problems that that specific area faces.

For instance, of one specific section of a city had

a co two problem element, maple trees could be planted

in the vicinity to help alleviate the environmental strain.

Ah, wild trees have numerous benefits that positively impact humanity.

They also have economical advantages.

All of the benefits of trees on a previously mentioned

have significant economic value.

Take, for instance, the trees ability to remove air pollution

in Sacramento County, nearly 238,000 metric tons of CO two

are removed each year by the region's forest at an

estimated value of nearly $3.3 million.

And while this is a lot, the most extreme benefit

that trees have economically on cities is its cooling effect.

Trees indirectly help energy conservation and buildings by reducing temperature,

providing shade and at blocking harsh winds during the winter.

So with buildings use less energy.

And not only will they save money that will actually

output less harmful emissions in the atmosphere, so it's pretty

much a win win situation.

Ah, cost analysis done in Modesto, California's municipal urban forest,

revealed that for every $1 spent on a tree up,

take the tree outputs nearly two toes worth of benefits

in the form of pollutant uptake, air conditioning, energy and

even aesthetics.

Another goal of my secondary research was to uncover the

logistics of the 1,000,000 trees and why see initiative?

And so this initiative was one of the first really

successful tree planting campaigns.

It was a program to plant one million trees in

the city of New York over the course of 10

years, and they actually finished the project nearly two years

ahead of schedule.

Ah, one of the research.

What went into creating such a successful program?

The manpower, the funding, the overall public support, and I

wanted to see whether that program could be replicated in

other cities.

So this initiative not only planted trees in parks and

streets, but also on private property on a increased the

city's urban canopy by over 20%.

So 70% of the trees were planted on streets and

public park barks.

But and my RPI, the New York Restoration Project, was

tasked with planting the other 30% in private part of

private property.

So after roughly two years, trees can more or less

fend for themselves.

But some communities can't actually care for trees within those

two years.

So under those circumstances, the I.

R P gave those neighborhoods grants to be able to

gather materials to care for those trees.

So the 1,000,000 Trees NYC Initiative success was built largely

upon word of mouth and community participation.

One organization on its own likely has no real chance

of making a real impact on cities independently, and that

is why it's necessary for individual people to begin to

outwardly show environmental support for it.

changed to be possible.

So my secondary research mainly focused on the benefits of

trees, but my primary research sent around the viability of

implementing those trees in urban areas.

I sent out a survey to try to determine the

overall opinion people have towards trees in cities, and the

findings were somewhat inconclusive.

The survey mainly consisted of two parts.

I asked respondents to rate how effectively trees were combating

certain issues in the city.

Such a storm, water control, increased heat, neighborhoods and overall

aesthetic and over 50% of responses for each issue except

for less heat in the city slash town indicated that

urban forests were either helpful or extremely helpful.

Ah, the other part of my survey asked responders to

rate how severe some of the problems created by trees

were, such as falling limbs.

I don't damage or unwanted wildlife.

And for each issue, over 50% of responses again agreed

that the issue was at least somewhat of a problem,

and on average, a further 10% indicated that it was

a severe problem.

So these results show that while the majority of responders

agreed that trees provided benefits and cities, they also agreed

that trees cause a lot of problems and could sometimes

be a nuisance.

So going forward and utilizing this data.

If cities were to implement some sort of tree planting

programme, they would have to plant just enough trees to

make an impact environmentally, but not enough to cause on

argument with the public.

Another aspect of my primary research was that I interviewed

individuals in environmental protection departments, and these interviews focused on

how they were working to keep their sea environment clean

and various programs they had started.

Many of their struggles were largely due to the increased

use of technology in the past 10 years and the

emissions slash pollution caused by them.

All of my interviews also had something to do with

the city budget, not necessarily being enough, because they all

agreed that trees were a very important aspect of our

world and that cities need more of them.

However, planting trees is not a cheap process, and without

a large volunteer system, many cities can't actually support the

labour necessary to plant many new trees.

So going back to my secondary research, that was one

of the reasons why the 1,000,000 trees NYC initiative was

so successful they had a lot of volunteers and nonprofit

community organizations pitch in to help.

And should cities want to replicate this initiative, they need

to make sure that they get the entire community on

their side in order to create a cleaner environment for

the future.

And though the main focus of my primary research was

centered around public perception, I also conducted an independent experiment

to determine certain effects a tree can expect to have

on its surroundings.

Throughout my secondary research, it was found that trees can

help absorb nutrients for surrounding plant life in the soil

and can also prove to be effective at absorbing increased

amounts of water during situations such as the aftermath of

floods. So this 10 week experiment was conducted to try

to verify the information found during my secondary research, and

the actual test itself was performed once a week on

a cypress Leyland sapling and consisted of a soil quality

test as well as a water absorption test.

And at the end of the experiment, the soil quality

test did show that as time the soil quality test

was inconclusive due to the large range listed on the

test itself.

But the water absorption tests showed that as time went

on, the amount of water that was able to be

absorbed increased, and the maximum amount of water that was

absorbed was recorded during the ninth week.

And so this kind of indicates that plant had grown

too large for the pot it was originally planted in.

So if the experiment was to be repeated, it would

be best to place a sapling in a larger pot

so the roots have more room to spread and, additionally,

a more specific soil quality task.

It should be obtained to get accurate measurements.

Overall, this research project led me to insights about the

effectiveness of trees as well as the management behind.

Environmental departments taught me how, even though we can't always

advocate for the right thing or do the right thing,

but due to a lack of resource is we should

constantly be advocating towards change.

This project was done to try to raise awareness about

the necessity of trees in urban areas and hopefully, by

watching this video, you are also motivated to try to

bring about change for the better.

Thank you so much for watching

Yashas Basavarajappa: Effectiveness of Urban Forestry

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