The Benefits of Trees
Trees are an important urban asset that can transform the City ’s streets and provide environmental, aesthetic, cultural and economic benefits.
Jubilee Park Phoenix Palms
Trees make our City beautiful
Trees create a sense of place. Tree lined streets provide orientation and contribute to the City’s character. They provide a human scale that contrasts with the towers that dominate some city streets. Trees diminish traffic noise, screen unwanted views and reduce glare improvement, provide summer shade for the comfort of pedestrians and residents.
Trees provide seasonal interest and natural beauty through foliage and their interesting leaf patterns, flowers, bark, fruit and canopy.
Trees improve our environment
Trees improve our air by removing carbon dioxide and returning oxygen to the atmosphere. This is done through photosynthesis, with the tree removing carbon and storing it in their leaves, trunks and roots.
Trees reduce air pollution and dust of our streets, by entrapping airborne particles and pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, ozone and carbon monoxide. They also trap toxic particles that are mostly emitted by diesel exhausts.
Trees improve our water by reducing the amount of toxins from the first flush of storm water run off after rain. Tree roots keep the soil porus which allows the storm water to be adsorbed rather than flow into the drain and our harbour.
Trees provide financial benefits
Trees enhance property values as they establish and mature. Trees also provide cost savings for energy consumption. The shade of a tree in summer reduces the need for air conditioning, and reduces the heat on absorbing surfaces - such as road bitumen or pathways. Collectively, trees reduce what is know as a ‘urban heat island effect’ where urban centres have a higher temperatures as a result of the large percentage of absorbing surfaces with little shade.
