Satisfaction with urban trees associates with tree canopy cover and tree visibility around the home

Camilo Ordóñez; S M Labib; Lincoln Chung; Tenley M Conway

doi:10.1038/s42949-023-00119-8

Satisfaction with urban trees associates with tree canopy cover and tree visibility around the home

NPJ Urban Sustain. 2023;3(1):37. doi: 10.1038/s42949-023-00119-8. Epub 2023 Jun 23.

Authors

Camilo Ordóñez¹, S M Labib², Lincoln Chung¹, Tenley M Conway¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Geography, Geomatics and Environment, University of Toronto at Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6 Canada.
² Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Abstract

Many world cities want to expand the number of urban trees. How this expansion occurs should consider what people expect from trees based on how they experience and perceive these trees. Therefore, we need a better understanding of how people perceptually respond to urban tree abundance. This research examined whether people's satisfaction with urban trees and satisfaction with the management of those trees were related to objective measures of greenery such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), percent tree canopy cover, and the Viewshed Greenness Visibility Index (VGVI) for trees. We used a demographically and geographically representative survey of 223 residents in Toronto, Canada, and calculated NDVI, canopy cover, and VGVI at three neighbourhood sizes. We analysed the data using generalized linear regression. We found that canopy cover and VGVI had a positive association with satisfaction with urban trees. The associations were comparatively stronger at larger neighbourhood scales than at smaller scales. There were no statistically significant associations with NDVI or satisfaction with the management of urban trees.

Keywords: Psychology and behaviour; Urban ecology.