SavATree, partners collaborate to study Los Angeles County's tree canopy

Bedford Hills, N.Y. – SavATree’s Consulting Group recently completed an analysis of the tree canopy and green infrastructure of Los Angeles County. The goal of this project has been to give the county actionable intelligence on the state of their tree canopy that can be used to identify areas for improvement and preservation.

In general, trees have been shown to improve water quality, reduce storm water runoff, decrease energy use in buildings, remove air pollution, enhance quality of life and increase property values. Improving canopy cover gives cities a chance to improve their climate resilience while enhancing community sentiment and public health.

SavATree, along with their collaborators TreePeople, Dr. Dexter Locke, the University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab and the Loyola Marymount Center for Urban Resilience, used high-resolution remote sensing in combination with demographic and urban heat data to break down the study area for review.

Among the key findings:

• 25 percent of the city’s and 18 percent of the county’s land is covered by tree canopy.
• Roughly 18 percent of the city’s canopy grows in 8 percent of the total land area, occupied by just 1 percent of the population.
• There has been a significant decline in tree canopy on residential land parcels since 2000.
• For Los Angeles, tree canopy is concentrated on residential parcels of land. Residential land also represents the largest area for improvement.
  

You can find the full report at treepeople.org.