A Scoping Review of Urban Planning Decision Support Tools and Processes That Account for the Health, Environment, and Economic Benefits of Trees and Greenspace

Stephen Smith launched a 40-year effort to bring trees to New York City streets in 1872, the year he founded the American Public Health Association (APHA). Smith argued that street trees would mitigate the adverse health effects of Manhattan’s summer heat and help purify the air. The young APHA endorsed Smith’s position and gave trees a prominent role in urban sanitation, but public health turned away from trees and urban reform movements as it adopted a biomedical public health model in the late 19th century. Nevertheless, Smith wrote and campaigned for a successful 1902 law requiring the New York City Parks Department to assume management of street trees in the name of public health. He then led a 1914 campaign to force the department to uphold his law. New York’s street tree program has had an erratic trajectory, but it now generally follows Smith’s vision. Public health could play a bigger role in creating greener cities and mitigating climate change with more field research and the health in all policies approach that Smith used to bring trees to Manhattan’s streets in 1914. ( Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 31, 2024:e1–e9. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307856 )

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Phytoremediation Potential of Urban Trees in Mitigating Air Pollution in Tehran

Rabiee,

Kaviani,

Kulus

et al. 2024

Forests

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The rapid urbanization and growing number of factories, human population, and motor vehicles have led to a drastic increase in the concentration of air pollutants. This smog is one of the most important disturbances in city planning. Urban trees play a vital role in the improvement of air quality. The selection of high-potential trees to capture air pollutants provides an attractive route for the mitigation of urban smog. The current study explored the air purification potential of the four most abundant trees, i.e., white mulberry (Morus alba L.), plane tree (Platanus orientalis L.), European ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.), and Tehran pine (Pinus eldarica Ten.)], as phytoremediators grown in three parks located in regions with low, moderate, and high levels of air pollution in Tehran on the mitigation of four urban hazardous gases (O3, NO2, CO, and SO2) and in altering the content of respiratory gases (CO2 and O2). The measurement of gas levels was carried out in September–October, from 1.30 to 1.50 m above the ground. The concentration of gases was measured by an ambient gas assessment device (Aeroqual). Broad-leaf deciduous species had a greater ability to mitigate O3, NO2, CO, CO2, and SO2 concentrations than needle-leaf evergreen species. The lowest levels of O3 and CO were found around P. orientalis (0.035 and 0.044 ppm, respectively), whereas the content of O2 was the highest in the atmosphere of this tree (20.80 ppm). The lowest content of NO2 (0.081 ppm) and SO2 (0.076 ppm) was determined in the vicinity of M. alba and F. excelsior, respectively. Among the studied species, P. orientalis proved to be the best for air phytoremediation, effectively mitigating hazardous gases more than the other species. Conversely, P. eldarica is not recommended for air phytoremediation in urban green spaces. Future research should focus on exploring a wider range of tree species and their potential for air pollution mitigation in diverse urban settings across different seasons and climatic conditions.

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A Scoping Review of Urban Planning Decision Support Tools and Processes That Account for the Health, Environment, and Economic Benefits of Trees and Greenspace

Cited by 3 publications

References 70 publications

Eco-Friendly Methods for Combating Air Pollution

Eco-Friendly Methods for Combating Air Pollution

Manhattan’s Street Trees: An Unfinished Public Health Story

Phytoremediation Potential of Urban Trees in Mitigating Air Pollution in Tehran

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