Trees are well known to benefit the air quality in urban areas, but it is perhaps not always easy to understand just how much of a difference they make.  A new tool developed in the UK aims to rectify that by providing policy makers with an easy to use platform to measure how much pollution can be removed by trees in any given area.

Indeed, not only does the tool showcase the environmental savings, but also the public health cost savings achieved by the cleaner air.  The developers hope that it will help to guide the significant investment being made in tree planting in the UK over the next few years.

The tool is based upon national data and aims to provide a free resource to guide local councils, NGOs and developers who are aiming to incorporate tree planting in their work in some way.  It shows the existing tree cover in each local authority, together with the levels of particulate matter (PM2.5) that is removed from the air by those trees over a 100-year period, both from existing coverage and any potential new plantations.

Environmental savings

The project builds upon previous work undertaken by the team that was conducted for the Office of National Statistics, which aimed to quantify the amount of air pollution removed by plants across the UK, with 1.4 million tons estimated, which provide health benefits of £1 billion per year.

“There is a lot of public concern about the potential health risks that pollution poses in many urban areas of the UK. While reducing harmful emissions at source is the best way to improve air quality, the addition of vegetation can play a role in removing pollutants within a local area,” the team explain.  “Trees make urban areas more attractive and improve local air quality, thereby boosting people’s health. As our ongoing research has shown, this in turn can have significant positive economic benefits.”

There is a growing political consensus that greater tree cover provides a number of benefits to urban areas, but there has perhaps been a lack of real science behind the various projects that aim to provide that.  The tool aims to plug that gap and allow teams to have a quantifiable approach to their work that will enable them to make smarter decisions in terms of deploying trees in the most effective way to reduce pollution and improve cardiovascular health.

The tool is available via the link at the start of the blog, but you can also view a webinar provided to launch the tool via the video below.