Fast Fact Library

Some plants are more effective than others mitigating air pollution with vegetated roadside buffers. Small, stiff, and complex leaves are generally more effective than larger, less rigid and less complex leaves...

Barwise, Yendle, and Prashant Kumar. “Designing vegetation barriers for urban air pollution abatement: a practical review for appropriate plant species selection”. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science 3, 12 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-020-0115-3

An analysis of satellite data for 14,000 cities and towns in the United States showed that areas within a 10-minute walk of a park can be up to 6° F cooler than areas further away from parks.

Trust for Public Land and MKThink. (2020). The Heat Is On: With temperatures rising and quality parks too few and far between, communities of color face a dangerous disparity. https://www.tpl.org/sites/default/files/The-Heat-is-on_A-Trust-for-Public-Land_special-report.pdf.

A cross-sectional study of almost 47,000 Australian residents showed that higher percentage of tree cover within one mile of their residence was associated with lower prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, and...

Thomas Astell-Burt, and Feng, Xiaoqi. “Urban green space, tree canopy and prevention of cardiometabolic diseases: a multilevel longitudinal study of 46,786 Australians.” International Journal of Epidemiology 49, Issue 3 (2020): 926–933. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyz239.

Trees with small leaf size and high leaf complexity and trees with long "in leaf" periods like evergreens generally make the most effective barriers against roadside pollution and offer the most air quality benefits...

Barwise, Yendle, and Prashant Kumar. “Designing vegetation barriers for urban air pollution abatement: a practical review for appropriate plant species selection” npj Climate and Atmospheric Science 3, no. 12 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-020-0115-3.

Coastal wetlands provide an average property damage savings of $1.8 million annually per square kilometer of wetland, as determined by a study of property damage caused by 88 tropical storms and hurricanes hitting...

Sun, Fanglin, and Richard T. Carson. “Coastal Wetlands Reduce Property Damage during Tropical Cyclones.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 2020. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1915169117.