Via Medium, an article on the potential for urban forests and vegetation to intercept and filter stormwater runoff, absorb airborne pollutants, provide windbreaks to protect buildings from wind damage, regulate urban heat island effects through shading and evaporation, provide wildlife habitats and ecosystem services, and mitigate climate change by storing carbon dioxide:
Urban forest programmes establish trees in public spaces such as parks, along streets or alleys, or in any available open areas that local government manages, for example, along a stream right-of-way, around public buildings, or in city-owned vacant lots. Urban forests can extend to green belts around cities that buffer waterways and regulate development. Urban forests can even extend to the acquisition and management of lands to preserve urban watersheds so that drinking water supply and quality are protected.
Melbourne’s Citizen Foresters
The City of Melbourne’s Urban Forest Strategy is aiming to increase canopy cover from 22 per cent to 40 per cent by 2040. To achieve this target, the city is seeking citizen volunteers to help create resilient, healthy and diverse urban landscapes for the future. Citizen Foresters are trained and empowered to grow the urban forest and improve urban ecology by carrying out essential advocacy, monitoring and research tasks. The programme holds events that allow participants to meet new people, learn new skills, and build knowledge about green space in the city. The programme has a variety of activities that allow residents to participate in meaningful, fun and rewarding environmental work.
The take-out
Citizen engagement is a key tool in enhancing urban forest cover.
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 25th, 2023 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Extreme Heat, Green Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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ABOUT
Black Swans / Green Shoots examines the collision between urbanization and resource scarcity in a world affected by
climate change, identifying opportunities to build sustainable cities and resilient infrastructure through the use
of revolutionary capital, increased awareness, innovative technologies, and smart design to make a difference in the
face of global and local climate perils.
'Black Swans' are highly improbable events that come as a surprise, have major disruptive effects, and that are
often rationalized after the fact as if they had been predictable to begin with. In our rapidly warming world, such
events are occurring ever more frequently and include wildfires, floods, extreme heat, and drought.
'Green Shoots' is a term used to describe signs of economic recovery or positive data during a downturn. It
references a period of growth and recovery, when plants start to show signs of health and life, and, therefore, has
been employed as a metaphor for a recovering economy.
It is my hope that Black Swans / Green Shoots will help readers understand both climate-activated risk and
opportunity so that you may invest in, advise, or lead organizations in the context of increasing pressures of
global urbanization, resource scarcity, and perils relating to climate change. I believe that the tools of business
and finance can help individuals, businesses, and global society make informed choices about who and what to
protect, and I hope that this blog provides some insight into the policy and private sector tools used to assess
investments in resilient reinforcement, response, or recovery.
