Last year, our newly elected federal government pledged to double infrastructure investments from $65 billion to nearly $125 billion over the next 10 years. Ontario has committed to spending $130 billion over the same time period. Though these commitments are long overdue, we must ensure that they include longer-lasting green solutions such as planting trees in urban areas for storm water management and other services.
Many municipalities and non-profit organizations are exploring ways to improve how we plan for, plant, maintain and protect urban trees as key infrastructure assets in our built environments.
We often take trees and green spaces for granted, but we shouldn't. They clean and cool air, filter and regulate water, reduce energy use and protect homes and businesses during storms. Living, green infrastructure increases in value over time, unlike grey infrastructure, such as storm water pipes, which depreciate. As trees mature they provide exponentially more benefits to residents.
Healthy street trees can lengthen the lifespan of built infrastructure, like roads and sidewalks, by shading them and reducing effects of weathering, and they provide significant human health benefits.
This summer, using data from Toronto, David Suzuki Foundation Ontario director Faisal Moola and his academic colleagues found that adding 10 trees to a block can produce health benefits equivalent to a $10,000 salary raise or being seven years younger.
Despite their enormous value to society, urban forest canopies are stressed and in decline in many parts of the country. Hot, dry summers and increasingly frequent and extreme storms are wreaking havoc on city trees. Urban development, invasive species like the emerald ash borer and other threats have also reduced growing space and killed millions of trees.
Few municipalities have the necessary financial resources to manage and protect their urban forests in the face of growing and diverse threats. To help resolve this, provincial and federal governments need to update the definition of infrastructure to include green infrastructure such as trees, rain gardens and permeable surfaces, and allow municipalities to spend money to develop and maintain these assets.
Higher levels of government must also update the standards by which municipalities report and manage their government assets to include trees, parks, wetlands, woodlots and public aquifers. That would facilitate setting minimum provincial standards for maintenance of critical green infrastructure and would improve management practices.
It’s also important to make living, green infrastructure a crucial component of provincial and federal climate change strategies. Urban forests contribute greatly to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide in tree biomass, understory vegetation and soils. Urban trees also help us adapt to and cope with climate change impacts by shading communities during periods of extreme heat.
If we’re going to build, let’s build green. Green infrastructure reduces costs associated with grey infrastructure. It also provides benefits that improve the health and well-being of residents and makes our communities more beautiful and pleasant.