Benefits of Trees

benefit

The Shire manages street trees for the following benefits to the community and ratepayers:

Social Benefits

  • Aesthetics. Trees make an important contribution to the character or amenity of the local area and form a notable visual element in the landscape
  • Trees are used widely in landscapes to provide physical amenity, and visually define areas through screening, linking and creating privacy.
  • Trees contribute to the visual appeal of a streetscape, provide a sense of place, define a street or suburbs character and soften the built urban nature of an area.
  • Trees improve our quality of life by providing a sense of peacefulness, restfulness, seasonal interest and tranquility by creating a more natural and less
  • artificial landscape.
  • Heritage values. Trees offer important links and stories to the past and help to develop a sense of community

Public Safety, Community Health and Wellbeing

  • Public Safety. There is evidence areas with planted trees experience lower levels of crime, and that trees help people feel more relaxed.
  • Urban Heat Island Effect. As the Shire becomes more urbanised, there is an increase in thermal radiation generated from more paved surfaces, buildings, infrastructure and roads. This results in increased temperatures and reflected heat which can affect vulnerable members of the community. Street trees significantly reduce heat island effect, create microclimates to reduce heat, glare, wind and UV radiation.
  • Air quality. Urban street trees reduce air pollution and absorb airborne particulates.
  • Trees control erosion, dust, atmospheric and light pollution, smoke and noise.

Economic Benefits

  • Increased Land values. Property values benefit from the presence of trees by creating the feel of community and a “sense of place”, and by making the area more desirable to live in.
  • Reduced heating and cooling costs, and heat island effects. Street trees provide shade and protect public assets such as pavements and roads, reducing costs for heating and cooling for dwellings and workplaces within the Shire.

Environmental Benefits

  • Trees actively purify the air by removing and storing carbon and other pollutants.
  • Particular trees are used to shield and or protect buildings and other hard structures.