Neighborhood-level Impacts of Street Trees on Air Pollution Mitigation and Urban Health in Washington Park and Park Hill, Denver, CO
Rapidly growing populations demand increased urban development and densification but living in cities often result in reduced mental and physical health and increased air pollution levels. Street trees, as a type of urban green space, offer a myriad of mental, physical, and air quality benefits. Prior research focuses on city or state-level analysis, so this study investigated if the health and pollution filtration services of street trees are retained at a small scale. A cover class statistical analysis was performed in two neighborhoods in Denver, CO, using the i-Tree UFORE model with inverse distance weighting of city pollution monitoring sites and health metric data. While results were inconclusive regarding health conditions due to a lack of accessible data, findings do show a strong association with air pollution mitigation and street tree presence. Street trees do provide tangible air pollution filtration services at the neighborhood-extent and are an integral part of sustainable urban environments.
