Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 48(5): September 2022 consumption and provide empirical evidence for where UTC and impervious surfaces in landscapes around homes have the most impact. Our hypotheses fol- lowed results from previous studies, expecting the greatest summer cooling electricity savings from UTC to be on the west side of homes with a varying rela- tionship with distance. We also expected that greater impervious cover around homes would increase sum- mertime cooling electricity consumption regardless of azimuth and distance from homes, due to the role impervious surfaces have in urban heating. While our research focused on evaluating if UTC and impervi- ous surfaces were impacting summer cooling elec- tricity use in the city, the lack of explanation of variance in our models, as indicated by low R-squared values, suggests that there is much more to investigate. Our future work will expand on drivers of summer cool- ing electricity consumption in the city by bringing in more explanatory variables such as urban form, building, sociodemographic, and behavioral charac- teristics. This could help identify major contributors to cooling electricity use which could be targets for policy or program intervention. CONCLUSIONS Although there is an ever-growing number of studies on the ecosystem services provided by trees, we still lack the necessary data and analyses needed to effec- tively develop management strategies to maximize the benefits provided by UTC, and in particular the impacts of UTC on increased urban heating. Previous studies and ecosystem service models suggest that trees around buildings can have a significant impact on summertime energy use, yet the magnitude of energy savings varies largely throughout the litera- ture, highlighting the need for ongoing research on the topic in diverse landscapes. Using a large sample of empirical data, our study aimed to evaluate the effect of UTC and impervious surfaces on energy consumption in a residential land- scape. Although our results indicated that UTC around single-family homes can lead to some reduction in household-level energy consumption, the impacts were not as substantial as suggested by previous literature. Furthermore, the location of trees in landscapes does matter, but our results demonstrated that trees on the west and south sides of buildings may not always be the most effective at cooling homes. Our results have implications for how cities develop UTC management strategies, as the reliance on 273 previously published findings or models regarding energy savings and optimal planting locations may not represent reality in all cities and urban environ- ments. More empirical research is needed in cities of different sizes, located in various biomes, and across a variety of neighborhoods with different designs to understand the real impact trees may have on energy use associated with cooling buildings in the summer- time, as well as other times of the year. LITERATURE CITED Abbott JA, Meentemeyer V. 2005. Research note—Vegetation effects on suburban air conditioning. Urban Geography. 26(6):558-564. https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.26.6.558 Akbari H, Davis S, Dorsano S, Huang J, Winnett S, editors. 1992. Cooling our communities: A guidebook on tree planting and light-colored surfacing. Berkeley (CA, USA): Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory; Washington (DC, USA): Environmental Protection Agency. 244 p. https://doi.org/10.2172/5032229 Akbari H, Pomerantz M, Taha H. 2001. Cool surfaces and shade trees to reduce energy use and improve air quality in urban areas. Solar Energy. 70(3):295-310. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S0038-092X(00)00089-X Alhazmi M, Sailor DJ, Anand J. 2022. A new perspective for understanding actual anthropogenic heat emissions from buildings. Energy and Buildings. 258:111860. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.enbuild.2022.111860 Approved Street Trees. 2021. Forestry. Fort Collins (CO, USA): City of Fort Collins, Forestry Division. [Accessed 2021 April 10]. https://www.fcgov.com/forestry/approved-street-trees Armson D, Rahman MA, Ennos AR. 2013. A comparison of the shading effectiveness of five different street tree species in Manchester, UK. Arboriculture & Urban Forestry. 39(4):157- 164. https://doi.org/10.48044/jauf.2013.021 Aronson MFJ, Lepczyk CA, Evans KL, Goddard MA, Lerman SB, MacIvor JS, Nilon CH, Vargo T. 2017. Biodiversity in the city: Key challenges for urban green space management. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 15(4):189-196. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1480 Beck SM, McHale MR, Hess GR. 2016. Beyond impervious: Urban land-cover pattern variation and implications for water- shed management. Environmental Management. 58:15-30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-016-0700-8 Bigsby KM, McHale MR, Hess GR. 2014. Urban morphology drives the homogenization of tree cover in Baltimore, MD, and Raleigh, NC. Ecosystems. 17:212-227. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10021-013-9718-4 Chithra SV, Nair MVH, Amarnath A, Anjana NS. 2015. Impacts of impervious surfaces on the environment. International Journal of Engineering Science Invention. 4(5): 27-31. https://www.ijesi.org/papers/Vol%284%295/E045027031.pdf Clark KE, Berry D. 1995. House characteristics and the effective- ness of energy conservation measures. Journal of the American Planning Association. 61(3):386-395. https://doi.org/10 .1080/01944369508975649 Community Canopy Program. 2017. Fort Collins (CO, USA): City of Fort Collins, Forestry Division. [Accessed 2021 April ©2022 International Society of Arboriculture
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