Developing a regional approach to modelling the co-benefits urban forest ecosystem services provide.

As the intensities of urbanization and climate change increase across the Toronto region, there are many benefits pointing to a need for increased investments in our regions urban forests. Urban forests provide co-benefits, services that benefit both humans and the environment, through heat mitigation and mitigation of the “urban heat island”, removing air pollution, sequestering carbon, managing storm water run-off and flood reduction, as well as benefits to both physical and mental human health. By using modelling software to project these co-benefits over the next 30+ years across climate change scenarios (low, medium, and high), the necessity of increased green infrastructure across the region will become apparent. It is the hope that the final report generated from these projections will assist in building a business model for investment in the Toronto region’s urban forests in the near future.

Faculty Supervisor:

Sandy Smith

Student:

Alexandra Farkas

Partner:

Toronto and Region Conservation Authority

Discipline:

Forestry

Sector:

University:

University of Toronto

Program: