READ: “To Improve City Life, Plant These 17 Super Trees” (Futurity)
By Patrick Barkham
The study in the journal Plants People Planet—led by Houston Wilderness President Deborah January-Bevers and colleagues at Rice University and in city government—lays out a three-part framework for deciding which trees to plant, identifying places where planting will have the highest impact, and engaging with community leadership to make the planting project a reality.
Using Houston as a best-case example, the collaborators determined what trees would work best in the city based on their ability to soak up carbon dioxide and other pollutants, drink in water, stabilize the landscape during floods, and provide a canopy to mitigate heat.