ArticlePloS one2021
The tree cover and temperature disparity in US urbanized areas: Quantifying the association with income across 5,723 communities.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed.
- Expanding frameworks: Integrating vulnerability, exposure, and critical infrastructure to assess pluvial flood risks in New York City.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Low-Income, Minority-Serving Public Schools in Southern California Have Disproportionately High Surface Temperatures.GeoHealth · 2026Article
- Characterizing Heat Health Outcomes and Informing Public Health Interventions with Medical Claims Data in California.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- An Open and Transferable Deep Learning Framework for Mapping Urban Tree Canopy Using NAIP Imagery.Remote sensing · 2026Article
- Trees halve urban heat island effect globally but unequal benefits only modestly mitigate climate-change warming.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Historical Neighborhood Redlining and Fertility in a Cohort of US Black Women.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Integrated effects of land cover, topography, urban morphology, and PM2.5 on land surface temperature.PloS one · 2026Article
- Contemporary income inequality outweighs historic redlining in shaping intra-urban heat disparities in Los Angeles.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Intersectional analysis for science and technology.Nature · 2025Review
- An enhanced national-scale urban tree canopy cover dataset for the United States.Scientific data · 2025Article
- A VSD-based framework for assessing climate justice in urban outdoor cooling spaces: a case study of Fuzhou, China.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Summer Heat, Historic Redlining, and Neighborhood Walking among Older Adults: 2017 National Household Travel Survey.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2024Article
- New York State Climate Impacts Assessment Chapter 05: Ecosystems.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2024Article
- Multi-scale analysis of urban forests and socioeconomic patterns in a desert city, Phoenix, Arizona.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Effects of extreme weather on health in underserved communities.Annals of allergy, asthma & immunology : official publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology · 2024Review
- Article
- Social Justice, Community Engagement, and Undergraduate STEM Education: Participatory Science as a Teaching Tool.CBE life sciences education · 2024Article
- More extremely hot days, more heat exposure and fewer cooling options for people of color in Connecticut, U.S.npj urban sustainability · 2024Article
- Article
- Neighborhood Environment and Epigenetic Age: A Scoping Review.Western journal of nursing research · 2023Article
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10 authors.
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Abstract
Urban tree cover provides benefits to human health and well-being, but previous studies suggest that tree cover is often inequitably distributed. Here, we use National Agriculture Imagery Program digital ortho photographs to survey the tree cover inequality for Census blocks in US large urbanized areas, home to 167 million people across 5,723 municipalities and other Census-designated places. We compared tree cover to summer land surface temperature, as measured using Landsat imagery. In 92% of the urbanized areas surveyed, low-income blocks have less tree cover than high-income blocks. On average, low-income blocks have 15.2% less tree cover and are 1.5⁰C hotter than high-income blocks. The greatest difference between low- and high-income blocks was found in urbanized areas in the Northeast of the United States, where low-income blocks in some urbanized areas have 30% less tree cover and are 4.0⁰C hotter. Even after controlling for population density and built-up intensity, the positive association between income and tree cover is significant, as is the positive association between proportion non-Hispanic white and tree cover. We estimate, after controlling for population density, that low-income blocks have 62 million fewer trees than high-income blocks, equal to a compensatory value of $56 billion ($1,349/person). An investment in tree planting and natural regeneration of $17.6 billion would be needed to close the tree cover disparity, benefitting 42 million people in low-income blocks.
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