Dataset Information

Under one canopy? Assessing the distributional environmental justice implications of street tree benefits in Barcelona.

ABSTRACT: Street trees are an important component of green infrastructure in cities, providing multiple ecosystem services (ES) and hence contributing to urban resilience, sustainability and livability. Still, access to these benefits may display an uneven distribution across the urban fabric, potentially leading to socio-environmental inequalities. Some studies have analyzed the distributional justice implications of street tree spatial patterns, but generally without quantifying the associated ES provision. This research estimated the amount of air purification, runoff mitigation and temperature regulation provided by circa 200,000 street trees in Barcelona, Spain, using the i-Tree Eco tool. Results were aggregated at neighborhood (n?=?73) and census tract (n?=?1068) levels to detect associations with the distribution of five demographic variables indicating social vulnerability, namely: income, residents from the Global South, residents with low educational attainment, elderly residents, and children. Associations were evaluated using bivariate, multivariate and cluster analyses, including a spatial autoregressive model. Unlike previous studies, we found no evidence of a significant and positive association between the distribution of low income or Global South residents and a lower amount of street tree benefits in Barcelona. Rather, higher ES provision by street trees was associated with certain types of vulnerable populations, especially elderly citizens. Our results also suggest that street trees can play an important redistributive role in relation to the local provision of regulating ES due to the generally uneven and patchy distribution of other urban green infrastructure components such as urban forests, parks or gardens in compact cities such as Barcelona. In the light of these findings, we contend that just green infrastructure planning should carefully consider the distributive implications associated with street tree benefits.

SUBMITTER: Baro F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6855261 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Under one canopy? Assessing the distributional environmental justice implications of street tree benefits in Barcelona.

Baró Francesc F Calderón-Argelich Amalia A Langemeyer Johannes J Connolly James J T JJT

Environmental science & policy 20191201

Street trees are an important component of green infrastructure in cities, providing multiple ecosystem services (ES) and hence contributing to urban resilience, sustainability and livability. Still, access to these benefits may display an uneven distribution across the urban fabric, potentially leading to socio-environmental inequalities. Some studies have analyzed the distributional justice implications of street tree spatial patterns, but generally without quantifying the associated ES provis ...[more]

PMID: 31798338

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Project description:Examining the distributional equity of urban tree canopy cover (UTCC) has increasingly become an important interdisciplinary focus of ecologists and social scientists working within the field of environmental justice. However, while UTCC may serve as a useful proxy for the benefits provided by the urban forest, it is ultimately not a direct measure. In this study, we quantified the monetary value of multiple ecosystem services (ESD) provisioned by urban forests across nine U.S. cities. Next, we examined the distributional equity of UTCC and ESD using a number of commonly investigated socioeconomic variables. Based on trends in the literature, we predicted that UTCC and ESD would be positively associated with the variables median income and percent with an undergraduate degree and negatively associated with the variables percent minority, percent poverty, percent without a high school degree, percent renters, median year home built, and population density. We also predicted that there would be differences in the relationships between each response variable (UTCC and ESD) and the suite of socioeconomic predictor variables examined because of differences in how each response variable is derived. We utilized methods promoted within the environmental justice literature, including a multi-city comparative analysis, the incorporation of high-resolution social and environmental datasets, and the use of spatially explicit models. Patterns between the socioeconomic variables and UTCC and ESD did not consistently support our predictions, highlighting that inequities are generally not universal but rather context dependent. Our results also illustrated that although the variables UTCC and ESD had largely similar relationships with the predictor variables, differences did occur between them. Future distributional equity research should move beyond the use of proxies for environmental amenities when possible while making sure to consider that the use of ecosystem service estimates may result in different patterns with socioeconomic variables of interest. Based on our findings, we conclude that understanding and remedying the challenges associated with inequities requires an understanding of the local social-ecological system if larger sustainability goals are to be achieved.

Dataset Information

Under one canopy? Assessing the distributional environmental justice implications of street tree benefits in Barcelona.

Publications

Under one canopy? Assessing the distributional environmental justice implications of street tree benefits in Barcelona.

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