Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 48(5): September 2022 Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2022. 48(5):261–277 https://doi.org/10.48044/jauf.2022.020 URBAN FORESTRY ARBORICULTURE Scientific Journal of the International Society of Arboriculture & From West to East: Tree Placement Differentially Affects Summertime Household Energy Consumption in a Semi-Arid City By Lauren Z. Abram, MS, Joshua P. Keller, PhD, Elizabeth A. Tulanowski, MS, and Melissa R. McHale, PhD Abstract. Background: Urban tree canopy (UTC) is often proposed as a mitigation strategy for simultaneously decreasing carbon emissions and urban heating in cities. Not only can trees reduce outdoor temperatures through shading and transpiration, but research also suggests that microclimate regulation by trees surrounding buildings can lead to cooler indoor temperatures and a subsequent decrease in summertime energy use. Methods: We analyzed summertime cooling electricity consumption for 21,048 single-family homes in a semi-arid city in northern Colorado, USA. Using Pearson’s correlation coefficients and multiple linear regression models, we evaluated the potential impact of UTC on cooling electricity use in 16 different zones around each house. We hypothesized that trees closer to the home, and trees located on the west and south sides of homes, would have the greatest impact on cooling electricity use. Results: UTC in all 16 zones around residential buildings was associated with negative correlation coefficients, indicating that UTC may be having an impact on energy use. Our regression results showed that UTC on the east side of single-family homes had the greatest effect. Conclusions: Although our results indicated that trees in landscapes around residential buildings can lead to some decreases in household-level energy consumption, the reductions in electricity usage were not as substantial as previous studies have predicted. Past research has shown that tree location matters, and our results indeed show that where UTC is located in reference to a building can change how much impact trees have on energy use. However, our results also show that trees on the east side of buildings have the most impact on household energy consumption in a semi-arid city in Colorado during the summer months. These results directly contradict predictions offered by popular ecosystem service models that show trees on the west and south sides of buildings as having the most impact on energy use in the Northern Hemisphere. Furthermore, many studies have suggested that the energy benefits provided by urban trees outweigh their carbon sequestration potential, and our results indicated this assumption may not hold true in all cities. Keywords. Residential Energy; Tree Benefits; Urban Ecology; Urban Forestry. 261 INTRODUCTION Climate change and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect are resulting in rising temperatures and pro- longed, severe heat waves in our cities, threatening livability and negatively impacting the health and well-being of urban residents. As a result, more cities are attempting to create cooler spaces, both indoor and out, for their residents, especially during the sum- mer months when high temperatures and heat waves pose the most danger to vulnerable populations. On top of putting urbanites’ health at risk, cities and their utilities are struggling to keep up with energy demands during heat waves, when residents with access to air-conditioning depend heavily on this mechanism to maintain comfortable temperatures in their homes. Even under typical, or less extreme, summertime conditions, research has shown that overall energy demand in cities can increase by 2% to 4% with every 1 °C increase in temperature (Akbari et al. 2001). While there are many ways to address urban heat- ing and increased energy demand in a city, one com- monly cited method is to invest in urban tree canopy (UTC). Research has shown that trees in urban land- scapes can mediate increased heat through shading and evapotranspiration (Middel et al. 2015; Ko 2018; Wang et al. 2018; Rahman et al. 2020; Winbourne et al. 2020). Ecosystem service models that predict the ©2022 International Society of Arboriculture
September 2022
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