Benefits of Urban Trees
Urban trees can really make a huge difference in how we live. Trees aid to resolve several problems linked to urban areas like air pollution and also energy saving. In addition, urban trees also create plant and wildlife diversity within the community. Further below are major benefits of urban trees.
1. Combat the greenhouse effect
Urban trees help combat the greenhouse effect that has several harmful effects like raising world temperatures to unprecedented levels. A key greenhouse effect cause is carbon dioxide, which is a heat trapping gas. Urban trees assist to remove the carbon present in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen into the air. Another way urban trees lower the detrimental greenhouse effect is through shading our office buildings and homes. This lessens air conditioning requirements up to 40%, thus lowering the number of fossil fuels burned for electricity production.
2. Water conservation
A major urban trees advantage lies in conserving water through reducing soil erosion. Trees form organic matter called mulch on the surface of the soil that helps lower water runoff from storms. They also promote lesser soil sedimentation and erosion in streams. Furthermore, urban trees also reduce soil erosion caused by wind through holding the soil particles firmly together. In general, if trees were absent, most cities would require increasing storm water and sewage drainage channels and also waste treatment sizes so as to deal with enhanced water runoff.
3. Improve local climate
Urban trees provide the huge useful effect of cooling our hot, inner cities. This hot effect normally results from the storage of lots of warm air in concrete, asphalt and steel. The collective cooling benefit offered by several evaporating urban trees lowers the temperatures in such areas. Tree also improve local climate through offering shade and reducing wind speed.
Sometimes urban trees may be detrimental than beneficial. For example, trees can prevent beneficial sun rays from reaching the crops and thus affect their development.
