The researchers set out to understand how Toronto residents' satisfaction with urban trees and tree management is influenced by factors such as canopy cover and visual greenness.
Amid a push from many world cities to increase the number of urban trees, the results might come as a surprise: our delight in urban trees increases at larger neighbourhood scales and is more dependent on canopy cover and visual greenness than previously thought.
The researchers found that satisfaction with urban trees was more closely linked to VGVI than tree canopy cover, suggesting that it's not only about the number of trees but also how visible they are in our everyday lives.
Is a neighbourhood draped in a thick canopy of lush trees more pleasing to residents? Or do residents find a few trees scattered across their daily walk routes more satisfying? Can assessing residents' satisfaction with urban trees and their management lead to any improvements in urban tree strategy? The hope is that addressing these questions could lead to better-informed urban tree management decisions that directly impact the quality of city life.
While many studies rely on canopy cover to represent urban forest presence, our results suggest that this measure does not adequately capture how people are experiencing urban trees.
Particularly in urban environments with a varying density of buildings that may block views of trees, canopy cover may overestimate how people's ability to see trees in their neighbourhood.