What is Green Infrastructure?
Green Infrastructure is about bringing together natural and built environments and using a cities’ landscape as infrastructure. It is defined as natural vegetation and vegetative technologies that collectively provide society with a broad array of products and services for healthy living; and takes many forms including urban forests, natural areas, green roofs and green walls, […]
4 Methods of Accommodating Utilities in Tree Pit Design
We need trees in our cities – but preventing tree roots from interfering with infrastructure is an ongoing issue. Utilities and other services are frequently encountered during construction of tree pits, but what is the best way to accommodate them? There are four main methods for creating service ducts through soil cells in tree pits, as […]
What Trees Bring to our Cities
Ongoing scientific research over the last decade has continued to provide overwhelming evidence of the numerous benefits and advantages that trees can bring to the urban environment, in terms of both their social and environmental impact. This infographic illustrates a few of these benefits. To download a copy of this infographic click here, or for a […]
What Landscape Architects & Urban Planners Should Know About Urban Sustainability
For the past several decades, it has become internationally recognized that the earth is unable to indefinitely support the type and extent of human activities that currently drive society. Sustainable development that ensures the healthy, lasting establishment of our local infrastructures mitigates this threat, and urban trees are essential to achieving and maintaining the sustainable environmental conditions […]
How Trees Act as Sound Barriers in Urban Environments
It is not an unknown fact that noise can reach unhealthy levels in urban areas. Cities across the world have acknowledged the impacts of noise pollution and enacted by-laws and practices to battle this increasing environmental issue. Noise abatement has become an important consideration for many municipalities as they constantly look at ways of suppressing […]
Trees as Sound Barriers
It is not an unknown fact that noise can reach unhealthy levels in urban areas. Cities across the world have acknowledged the impacts of noise pollution and enacted by-laws and practices to battle this increasing environmental issue. Noise abatement has become an important consideration for many municipalities as they constantly look at ways of suppressing […]
Suspended Pavement for Urban Tree Growth
Urban areas can often be completely covered by one hardscape surface or another – which when not considered properly can mean a nonexistent presence of trees in cityscapes. Given the enormous social and environmental benefits of trees, urban landscape professionals should consider methods suitable for planting trees in urban areas. Suspended pavement over noncompacted soil […]
Urban Forests vs Woodland Forests
Trees are woodland forestry plants. As soon as we forget this fact, we neglect the necessities that trees need and are likely to make mistakes when planting trees in urban forests. A tree in a woodland forest has near perfect conditions; a sheltered microclimate, rich fertile soil with an abundance of nutrients and humus, uncompacted […]
Trees in Hardscape: Structural Stability vs Rootable Soil
Soil structure is fundamental for the planting of trees, as well as the stability of roads, buildings, and other infrastructure. It refers to two things: the arrangement of soil particles including silt, sand, and clay that aggregate together the void pore spaces between these aggregate particles In this article, we discuss why appropriate soil structure is critical […]
Amazon’s Trees Removed Nearly a Third Less Carbon in Last Decade
The amount of carbon the Amazon region’s remaining trees removed from the atmosphere in the last decade fell by almost a third, according to leading scientists. They continue by warning that man-made carbon emissions will need to be even more severely reduced in order to tackle climate change. Trees in untouched areas of the forest have been dying off at an increasing rate, […]