A recently published study indicates that trees in cities are growing better than trees in rural areas downwind of the cities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:
Transcript
A recently published study indicates that trees in cities are growing better than trees in
rural areas downwind of the cities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
has more:
This study, published in the journal Nature, found that trees grown in many
different conditions grow twice as fast in the city than trees in the country. Jillian Gregg
at Cornell University is the lead author of the study. She says lots of factors affected the
trees…
“But, in the end, the most important factor was ground level ozone which was higher in
rural environments.”
Ground level ozone develops when pollution in the city stews in the sun for a while. As
the chemicals drift out of the city, ozone develops downwind in the rural areas where the
impact on the trees is greater.
“So, in the rural environments, the ozone stays around for longer so you have a longer
exposure period.”
During three growing seasons at eight sites in eleven different types of soils, the results
were the same. The city trees did much better than the trees in the country exposed to
ground level ozone longer.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.