Goal

C

Establish and maintain a 5% tree canopy increase to expand community resilience and improve air quality.

St. Louis’ tree canopy, consisting of trees in the public right-of-way, is a critical component of the City’s climate response, including alleviating extreme heat, improving air quality, capturing stormwater, and sequestering carbon. Investments in tree canopy provide shade equity, especially important given the increasing number of very hot days in St. Louis City. Beyond these benefits, the urban forest is a vital part of the City’s character. The benefits of a healthy urban forest are many, including reducing cooling costs in the summer, reducing noise pollution, and even improving residents’ mental health.

Strategy

Strengthen the City-maintained urban forest to protect mature and critical trees, establish clear permitting and maintenance requirements, and grow the overall tree canopy in light of climate pressures and development impacts, prioritizing neighborhoods that have experienced historical disinvestment.

Expected Outcomes

Mitigated health risks from extreme heat, with a focus on neighborhoods with a low tree canopy and high energy burden.
Sequestered carbon, improved biodiversity, and decreased stormwater runoff.

How will we achieve this?

Our Actions

C.1

Bolster City tree ordinances and streets, sidewalks, and design standards to prioritize and ensure protection of the urban forest, particularly mature healthy trees.

C.2

Continue to replace unnecessary turf (in medians, parking areas, etc.) with low-water, drought-tolerant native plantings and trees.

C.3

Develop an Urban Heat Island Action Plan to identify locations to depave underutilized hardscapes like parking lots, increase native tree canopy and shade, incorporate natural spaces, and utilize cool roofs.

C.4

Establish funding and resources for the creation of a City-managed native tree nursery on existing City-owned land, which grows cost-effective, climate adaptive trees for replacements and plantings.

Case Studies

Learn more about the sustainability practices or principles mentioned in the actions above.

Cool Roofs

Cool roofs are an effective tool for increasing building efficiency while also enhancing resilience to extreme heat. Cool roofs are designed to reflect more sunlight than a conventional roof by absorbing less solar energy. This lowers the temperature of the building just as wearing light-colored clothing keeps you cool on a sunny day. In fact, cool roofs can stay more than 50°F (28 °C) cooler than traditional roofs. This can save energy and money in buildings with air conditioning and improve comfort and safety in buildings without air conditioning. Cool roofing products usually cost no more than comparable conventional roofing products for new construction or roof replacements. St. Louis offers a guide for starting a cool roof program in your own community.

Tree Canopy

Tree canopies are the layer of branches and leaves that create a cover over the ground below. They support cities in numerous ways. For example, they can reduce storm water runoff by catching rainfall and increasing water absorption in soil. Additionally, tree canopies help keep neighborhoods cooler in the summer and reduce urban heat. Given these benefits, the 3+30+300 principle offers a straightforward and evidence-based framework for supporting urban greening with three critical components: ●3 - Everyone should be able to see at least three large trees from where they live, work, learn, or receive care. ●30 - Neighborhoods should have at least 30% tree canopy cover. ●300 - We should all have a high-quality, publicly accessible green space of no more than 300 meters (328 yards) away. The combination of these components ensures that we always have accessible, visible green space and sufficient tree canopy coverage. This principle has gained popularity across the world and is now being used by many local authorities, national governments, community groups, and businesses.