How Preserving a Mature Tree Canopy Benefits Our Health
More and more studies are showing the health benefits of mature tree canopies in urban and neighborhood settings. This is great news because it shows that preserving and caring for trees has real impacts on the quality of life for local residents. Here, after going over how trees in the built environment affect our health, we’ll take a look at the opportunities found in Nashville’s canopy for maintaining and improving local well-being.
What Are the Health Benefits of a Tree Canopy?
Trees affect our health in many ways, and in urban areas, they are particularly important in reducing some of the exposures of the built environment that impact individual and public health.
A few major ways that a robust urban canopy affects our health include:
Air filtration
Temperature and moisture moderation
Beautification and psychological engagement
In the built environment, the concentration of buildings, utilities, and cars creates pollutants that can linger in the air, but trees absorb and filter some of these particles. Many illnesses, particularly respiratory ones, are affected by air quality.
The built environment’s impervious cover (including streets and buildings) creates and holds more heat than natural cover does (known as the heat island effect). Big, mature trees create shade and capture (then release) moisture that can cool an area by several degrees.
The presence of individual trees (in addition to green cover like grass and flowers) provides visual comfort that draws us into the environment, encouraging active engagement. Taking walks or playing sports in green spaces can affect physical health (such as weight management and cardiovascular health) and mental health (like stress reduction and feelings of connection to a place).
While trees don’t eliminate disease or heat outright, monitoring the links between human health and local environmental conditions can inform planning and landscaping decisions that intentionally support local health outcomes.
Managing Information About Public Health and the Environment
Information maintained by public health departments can be used in conjunction with tree canopy assessments, heat and air quality data, and insights from residents to examine the relationships between tree presence and public health outcomes.
Those conclusions can then be applied when developing strategies such as urban forestry programs, green infrastructure projects, or targeted interventions in underserved areas to improve both environmental and public health. When the results of programs, projects, and interventions are recorded and reported, they can then be referenced as examples of success that can inform work in other places.
The Green Heart initiative in Louisville, Kentucky is one such example. Led by the University of Louisville and implemented in 2018, this project has made a multimillion-dollar investment in the green space of underserved Louisville neighborhoods. One of the goals of the project is to study and demonstrate the scientific link between nature and human health as a clinical trial where trees are the medicine. This is the first study of its kind!
The first round of results in 2024 has shown that, in areas where trees and shrubs were planted, residents experienced a significant reduction in inflammation compared to residents in unplanted areas. This finding is important because lower levels of inflammation are associated with a reduced risk of heart disease, and the results demonstrate a meaningful public health impact of landscape-related decisions.
The Tree Canopy for Public Health in Nashville
Metro Nashville’s 2023 Urban Tree Canopy Assessment mapped the ground cover of the city, visualizing Nashville’s tree cover and identifying areas that had the potential to support trees (possible planting areas). The report included coverage goals for various parts of the city, as well as recommendations to prioritize canopy expansion and conservation of existing canopy and to work with private property owners on achieving area-wide tree canopy goals. Local organizations like the Nashville Tree Conservation Corps use this kind of report to inform initiatives so that they align with identified local needs, including creating public health benefits.
A city’s tree canopy is essential green infrastructure that has real impacts on our quality of life, including our physical and mental health. Trees on public land are the responsibility of various local organizations, but the majority of Nashville’s tree canopy is located on private property. This means residents can make a big contribution to local public health by making thoughtful landscaping decisions at home.
Embrace Nashville’s Tree Canopy!
If you have space in your yard to plant, you can help grow the city’s canopy cover by purchasing a tree through NTCC’s tree sale. You can also donate a tree or volunteer with us to help plant and care for trees across Nashville! We welcome financial donations; every dollar received goes to fulfilling our mission to support Nashville’s canopy for the good of the city.
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