California’s Roadside Trees Provide $1 Billion in Municipal Services

The trees that line California’s streets and boulevards are worth an estimated $1 billion a year for the work they do in removing air pollution, storing CO2, cooling homes, and reducing rain runoff, among other municipal services, according to a new analysis by the U.S. Forest Service and the University of California, Davis. The state’s 9.1 million street trees pull nearly 568,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere annually, equal to taking 120,000 cars off the road, the study, published in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, found. The scientists say California has room to put another 16 million trees along its roads if it wants. “We’ve calculated for every $1 spent on planting or maintaining a street tree, that tree returns, on average, $5.82 in benefits,” forester and lead author Greg McPherson said in a statement. “These trees are benefiting their communities 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”