Disadvantaged communities experience fewer ecosystem services and benefits from urban tree coverEnvironmental justice studies have traditionally focused on concerns about how socially disadvantaged communities are disproportionately affected by environmental burdens, such as pollution. This study reflects an emerging line of research on the distribution of environmental goods and amenities that affect both environmental quality and human health.
The aim of this study was to determine whether the ecosystem services and monetary benefits of tree cover are distributed equally across various socio-demographic and socio-economic variables at the census block group level in the Bronx, NY. Ecosystem services provided by tree cover assessed in this study include carbon storage and sequestration, stormwater runoff reduction, air pollutant removal, and heat index reduction. Statistical procedures were used to analyze trends in the relationship between total inequality of census block group populations and the different ecosystem services and benefits provided by tree cover. Statistical procedures were also used to identify the sources of within-group and between-group inequality. Indicators of inequality included per capita and median income, percent minorities, population density, percent poverty, and total educational attainment. The Bronx was chosen as the site of this study because of (a) air quality, storm water and urban heat island issues in this borough, (b) the diverse demographics of the Bronx and (c) the lack of ecosystem services and benefits to some communities within the borough.
Results showed that “all ecosystem services and benefits appear to be unequally and inequitably distributed in the Bronx, with disadvantaged socio-demographic and socio-economic block groups receiving disproportionately lower ecosystem services from urban trees.” The inequality is explained, for the most part, by variations within each socio-demographic and socioeconomic subgroup rather than variations between subgroups. The sub-group variations are “likely due to the heterogenous nature of the census block groups in the Bronx and the wide variations in tree cover across census block groups with similar demographics.”
This study shows that environmental amenities are inequitably low in disadvantaged socio-economic or socio-demographic communities in the Bronx and that these communities experience fewer urban environmental benefits. For achieving greater equity in the distribution of ecosystem services, this research highlights the importance of initially targeting disadvantaged block groups with extremely low tree cover. “Overall, the study has shown that decision-making and management plans should incorporate environmental justice in their programming activities and ensure that tree-planting is a participatory, collective, and local stakeholder-engaged process to achieve more beneficial outcomes from trees, especially for disadvantaged socio-economic and socio-demographic groups and marginalized communities that lack these services and benefits.”
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