Toronto seen to be green in tree-canopy mapping of cities around the world
MIT rcollaborated with the World Economic Forum to map urban canopies in 11 cities around the world. At 19.5 per cent, Toronto came in fourth.
Thestar.com
Jan. 4, 2017
By May Warren
When it comes to trees, Toronto is world class, but our greenery is under stress, local environmentalists say.
Researchers at MIT rcollaborated with the World Economic Forum to map urban canopies in 11 cities around the world. By counting trees using Google Street View, they measured the percentage of each city’s area covered by canopy.
At 19.5 per cent, Toronto came in fourth, ahead of Paris, London and New York, but trailing Vancouver, Geneva and Seattle.
Carlo Ratti, a professor in MIT’s department of urban studies, said the goal is to “start a conversation,” so cities can “see how they compare and how they can learn from each other.”
A second phase of the project will get residents engaged by letting them annotate images of trees and track them through Google Street View.
While Toronto’s highly rated canopy is cause for celebration, environmentalists say there’s a lot of work to do to keep the city’s urban forest healthy.
A June 2016 report by the Green Infrastructure Ontario Coalition shows local trees are under threat from poor soil quality and invasive pests such as the Emerald Ash Borer.
Janet McKay, the coalition’s chair, is calling on the province to create an urban forest strategy and invest more in “green infrastructure.”
“It’s really essential in our cities. We need it and we have really ignored it and taken it for granted,” she said.
The urban forest is a “buffer” from the effects of climate change as it absorbs water during flooding, provides shade during heat waves and improves air quality, McKay added.
