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Harris County appears to be losing more trees than it is planting. New datasets explore which neighborhoods lost the most.

DATA :  Apr. 11, 2024 HEALTH

Tree canopy

Roy Kent/Kinder Institute for Urban Research

New datasets on the Kinder Institute’s Urban Data Platform (UDP) make it possible to understand how tree canopy coverage has changed in the past decade across the Houston region. In short: We appear to be losing trees faster than we are planting them.

Among their many health benefits, trees play an essential role in reducing peak summer air temperatures. And, as one of the many indicators for vulnerability to heat and air pollution, they are a critical factor in mitigating the effects of climate change.

From 2011 to 2021, there was about a 9.9% decrease in overall average tree canopy in Harris County. More specifically, around 88% of community tabulation areas (CTAs) in the county experienced a decrease in average tree canopy coverage (CTAs are subdivisions of Harris County comparable to super neighborhoods). In fact, between 2015 and 2016, about 87% of census block groups in the county experienced a decrease.

These statistics were calculated using one of the two new UDP tree canopy datasets, which Houstonians can use as a starting point to, for example, map their neighborhood’s average tree canopy over time from 2011-2021, even going as far as researching local weather or construction events to account for these changes. Correspondingly, organizations and communities can use the data to determine the neighborhoods most in need of more trees: those especially susceptible to heat, prone to flooding, with less access to greenspace, etc.