The tree cover and temperature disparity in US urbanized areas: Quantifying the association with income across 5,723 communities.

ABSTRACT: Urban tree cover provides benefits to human health and well-being, but previous studies suggest that tree cover is often inequitably distributed. Here, we use National Agriculture Imagery Program digital ortho photographs to survey the tree cover inequality for Census blocks in US large urbanized areas, home to 167 million people across 5,723 municipalities and other Census-designated places. We compared tree cover to summer land surface temperature, as measured using Landsat imagery. In 92% of the urbanized areas surveyed, low-income blocks have less tree cover than high-income blocks. On average, low-income blocks have 15.2% less tree cover and are 1.5⁰C hotter than high-income blocks. The greatest difference between low- and high-income blocks was found in urbanized areas in the Northea

SUBMITTER: McDonald RI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8081227 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature