Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 36(3): March 2010 * At a ‘typical’ residence with late afternoon shade, the electricity usage was an estimated 6% lower than a res- idence with no shade, to a savings of approximately $13/ month. * At a residence with 50% shade coverage during the late afternoon, the electricity usage was an estimated 10% lower than a residence with no shade, to a savings of ap- proximately $22/month. * At a residence with 75% shade coverage during the late afternoon, the electricity usage was an estimated 15% lower than a residence with no shade, to a savings of approximately $33/month. * At a residence with 100% shade coverage during the late afternoon, the electricity usage was an estimated 20% lower than a residence with no shade, to a savings of ap- proximately $43/month. * At a ‘typical’ residence, with a thermostat setting of 76.35°F (24.64°C) during the day, raising the thermostat setting by one degree Fahrenheit (1 degree Centigrade) reduced electricity use by 3.8% (6.84%), to a savings of approxi- mately $8 ($15) per month. Obviously, these calculated monetary values/savings will change if/as rates change. In addition to the natural air conditioning services they pro- vide, trees affect the well-being of humans in various other ways. A list of the ways that trees beneficially affect mankind would include (but not be limited to): energy for heating/cool- ing, aesthetics, food source, habitat for wild animals that humans value, forage for domesticated animals, medicines, construction materials, and natural filtration services that improve the qual- ity and flow rates of surface waters. For the most part, the ser- vices provided by trees are not priced, which presents a very particular problem from an economics/management perspective. Typically, we use prices as a benchmark for assigning values to things. In the absence of prices, there may be a tendency to overlook or ignore the values contributed to our lives by trees. In turn, this increases the likelihood that trees will be cut down or managed in ways that contribute less-than-optimally to human welfare and/or ecological sustainability. One of the scientific challenges we face, then, is to assign values to the services pro- vided by trees as a precondition for more effective management. Acknowledgments. This research was supported by grant #07-DG- 11420004-027 provided by the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council (NUCFAC) and by a McIntire-Stennis grant provided to the second author and administered through the SFWS at Auburn University. Our research has benefited from suggestions received from two anonymous reviewers and an associate editor, as well as comments made during seminar presentations at the School of Forestry at the Uni- versity of Melbourne, CSIRO – Atherton (Australia), the Department of Economics at the University of Adelaide, and the Institute of Forestry, Tribhuvan University, Pokhara, Nepal. However, responsibility for the findings presented rests solely with the authors. LITERATURE CITED Akbari, H., S. Davis, J. Huang, S. Dorsano, and S. Winnett. 1992. Cool- ing our communities: A guidebook on tree planting and light-colored surfacing. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Report LBL-31587. US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Policy Analysis, Climate Change Division, Washington, D.C. 217 pp. Akbari, H., D.M. Kurn, S.E. Bretz, and J.W. Hanford. 1997. Peak power and cooling energy savings of shade trees. Energy and Buildings 25:139–148. Carver, A.D., D.R. Unger, and C.L. Parks. 2004. Modeling Energy Savings from Urban Shade Trees: An Assessment of the CITYgreen® Conservation Module. Environmental Management 34:650–655. Energy Clark, K.E., and D. Berry. 1995. House characteristics and the effective- ness of energy conservation measures. Journal of the American Plan- ning Association 61:386. Forbes Magazine. 2008. America’s Fastest-Growing Metros. Accessed 9/08. Huang, Y.J., H. Akbari, H. Taha, and A.H. Rosenfeld. 1987. The Poten- tial of Vegetation in Reducing Summer Cooling Loads in Residential Buildings. Journal of Applied Meteorology 26:1103–1116. Jensen, R.R., J.R. Boulton, and B.T. Harper. 2003. The Relationship Be- tween Urban Leaf Area and Household Energy Usage in Terre Haute, Indiana, U.S. Journal of Arboriculture 29:226–230. Laverne, R.J., and G.M.D. Lewis. 1996. The Effect of Vegetation on Res- idential Energy Use in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Journal of Arboriculture 22:234–243. Lechner, Norbert. 1991. Heating, Cooling, Lighting: Design Methods for Architects. John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY. 620 pp. McPherson, E.G., D. Nowak, G, Heisler, S. Grimmond, C. Souch, R. Grant, and R. Rowntree. 1997. Quantifying urban forest structure, function, and value: the Chicago Urban Forest Climate Project. Urban Ecosystems 1:49–61. McPherson, G., and J.R. Simpson. 1995. Shade trees as a demand-side resource. Home Energy Magazine (Mar–Apr) 12:11–17. Parker, J.H. 1983. Landscaping to reduce the energy used in cooling buildings. Journal of Forestry 81:82–104. Rudie, R.J., and R.S. Dewers. 1984. Effects of tree shade on home cool- ing requirements. Journal of Arboriculture 10:320–322. Simpson, J.R., and E.G. McPherson. 1996. Potential of tree shade for reducing residential energy use in California. Journal of Arboricul- ture 22:10–18. 79 ©2010 International Society of Arboriculture
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