"Super Trees" May Help Save Houston … and Beyond
upstart writes:
A new study by collaborators at Rice University, the Houston Health Department's environmental division and Houston Wilderness establishes live oaks and American sycamores as champions among 17 "super trees" that will help make the city more livable and lays out a strategy to improve climate and health in vulnerable urban areas.
Best of all for Houston, they're already implementing their plan in the city, and now offer what they've learned to others.
The open access study in the journal Plants People Planet -- led by Houston Wilderness President Deborah January-Bevers and colleagues at Rice and in city government -- lays out a three-part framework for deciding what trees are the right ones to plant, how to identify places where planting will have the highest impact and how to engage with community leadership to make the planting project a reality.
Using Houston as a best-case example, the collaborators determined what trees would work best in the city based on their ability to soak up carbon dioxide and other pollutants, drink in water, stabilize the landscape during floods and provide a canopy to mitigate heat.
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