The Benefit of Trees
Social Benefits
- Trees make life nicer.
Communal Benefits
- Through careful planning trees can be an asset to your entire community.
- Tree lined streets have a traffic calming effect, traffic moves more slowly and safely.
- Trees can be placed to screen unwanted views or noise from busy highways.
- Trees can complement the architecture or design of buildings or entire neighborhoods.
Environmental Benefits
- Trees reduce the urban heat island effect especially true in areas with large impervious surfaces, such as parking lots of stores and industrial complexes.
- Trees improve our air quality by filtering harmful dust and pollutants such as ozone, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide from the air we breathe.
- Trees give off oxygen that we need to breathe.
- Trees reduce the amount of storm water runoff, which reduces erosion and pollution in our waterways and may reduce the effects of flooding.
- Many species of wildlife depend on trees for habitat. Trees provide food, protection, and homes for many birds and mammals.
Economic Benefits
- Well placed trees can reduce your cooling costs in the summer by shading the south and west sides of your home. If deciduous trees are used they will allow the sun to pass through and warm your home in the winter.
- Evergreen trees on the north side of your home and shrubs around the foundation of your home can act as a windbreak to reduce the cooling effects of winter winds.
- The value of a well landscaped home with mature healthy trees can be as much as 10% higher than a similar home with no or little landscaping. (Topping will reduce the value of your trees)
- Some indirect economic benefits of trees are that if we reduce the energy we use then utility companies will have less demand placed on the infrastructure, thus reducing operating costs which can be passed on to the consumer.
from the Tree Advisory Group of Bowling Green, Kentucky