01/01/2023
Societal Impact Statement
Trees play a critical role for people and the planet. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the presence of trees and urban nature can improve people's mental and physical health, children's attention and test scores, the property values in a neighborhood, and beyond. Trees cool our urban centers. Trees are essential for healthy communities and people. The benefits that trees provide can help cities and countries meet 15 of the 17 internationally supported United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This critical review provides a comprehensive argument that trees should be considered an important part of the equation by project managers and civic leaders as we collectively work toward reaching these sustainability goals.
Summary
We live in an era influenced by humans to the point that the Earth's systems are now altered. In addition, a majority of the world's population live in cities. To meet the needs of people in a changing world, The United Nations General Assembly created the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG) to improve the quality of life for people. These broad goals outline the greatest challenges of our time. An effective strategy to assist in meeting these goals is to plant and protect trees, especially in cities where the majority of people live. This paper serves as a critical review of the benefits of trees. Trees promote health and social well-being by removing air pollution, reducing stress, encouraging physical activity, and promoting social ties and community. Children with views of trees are more likely to succeed in school. Trees promote a strong economy and can provide numerous resources to the people that need them. While cities are getting hotter, trees can reduce urban temperatures. They provide habitat and food for animals. Finally, trees are valuable green infrastructure to manage stormwater. Money spent on urban forestry has a high return on investment. As we navigate this human-dominated era, we need skilled people who understand the nuances of the built environment and trees as we strategically plan the cities of the future. The overwhelming evidence from the scientific literature suggests that investing in trees is an investment in meeting the UN SDG, and ultimately an investment for a better world.
This current era, the Anthropocene, is driven by human influence and it has ushered in a growing number of direct and indirect challenges that can greatly impact the health and prosperity of people and the planet (Ellis, 2015). Climate change is driving an unprecedented number of extreme climatic events and causing ocean levels to rise (Goudie, 2019). The human population continues to increase (UN, 2015a) and metropolitan regions are growing and expanding. By 2050, most of the world's population (70%) will live in cities (FAO, 2016). These concentrated populations have a wide variety of challenges, ranging from people not having access to clean water to pollution-related health issues (UN, 2015b).
People and cities need efficient and effective solutions to address the challenges of this current era. In 2015, the United Nations (UN) outlined 17 goals for sustainable development. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG), while ambitious, have the promise to improve the quality of life for the billions of people on this planet and serve as a strong example of what the global society prioritizes (UN, 2015b).
Environmental and nature-based solutions can help address a majority of these outlined goals. Previous work has aligned environmental topics, such as plant conservation (Sharrock & Jackson, 2017), soil and soil science (Keesstra et al., 2016), and the prevention of land degradation (Vlek, Khamzina, & Lulseged, 2017) as solutions to meet the UN SDG. One additional way to address the challenges that the urban population faces is to provide people with green spaces and to plant, maintain, and protect trees (FAO, 2016; Endreny et al., 2017; Endreny, 2018; World Resources Institute, 2018). The direct and indirect benefits of trees and nature are vast (Blackmore, 2009; Brack, 2002; Hirons & Thomas, 2018; Kuo, 2015; Tyrväinen, Pauleit, Seeland, & De Vries, 2005), and much research has focused on the benefits of trees to urban residents (Jennings & Johnson Gaither, 2015).
This paper provides a critical and succinct review on how the benefits of trees can increase the well-being of a majority of the world's population. The authors classify the benefits of trees into five categories: (a) health and social well-being; (b) cognitive development and education; (c) economy and resources; (d) climate change mitigation and habitat; and (e) green infrastructure (Table 1). In addition to the benefits in these categories, the presence of trees and green space can help a city to meet Goal 11, sustainable cities and communities, of the UN SDG through providing universal access to green and public spaces. This paper expands on the work of the FAO (2016) and highlights additional goals of the UN SDG that can be met through a healthy urban forest.
Table 1. A high-level overview of the benefits that urban trees provide, and how the direct and indirect benefits relate to the corresponding United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Further, the presence of trees and green space can help a city meet Goal 11, or sustainable cities and communities, through providing universal access to green and public spaces
