SavATree’s Consulting Group has recently completed a tree canopy and green infrastructure analysis of Los Angeles County.

The goal of this project was to give the county actionable intelligence on the state of its tree canopy that can be used to identify areas for improvement and preservation, according to the company.

Trees have been shown to improve water quality, reduce stormwater runoff, decrease energy use in buildings, remove air pollution, enhance quality of life and increase property values. Improving canopy cover gives cities a chance to improve their climate resilience while enhancing community sentiment and public health, SavATree said.

SavATree, along with its collaborators TreePeople, Dr. Dexter Locke, The University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab and The Loyola Marymount Center for Urban Resilience, used high-resolution remote sensing in combination with demographic and urban heat data to break down the study area for review.

Among the key findings:

• Twenty-five percent of the city’s land and 18 percent of the county’s land is covered by tree canopy;
• Roughly one-fifth (18 percent) of the city’s canopy grows in one-tenth (8 percent) of the total land area, occupied by just 1 percent of the population;
• There has been a significant decline in tree canopy on residential land parcels since 2000; and
• For the city of LA, tree canopy is concentrated on residential parcels of land. Residential land also represents the largest area for improvement.

“For over 40 years, TreePeople has been a leader in protecting and enhancing LA’s tree canopy,” said Michael Galvin, director of SavATree’s Consulting Group. “They continue that leadership with this study. They are great partners, and we could not be more pleased that they chose SavATree Consulting Group to help them plan for a greener and more sustainable Los Angeles.”

You can find the full report here.