One of my favorite books is The Lorax. As a landscape architect and arborist, I consider myself a professional tree hugger who is often called to "speak for the trees" like the character in the Dr. Suess children’s book. But in all seriousness, it has resonated with me that trees are part of the answer to so many of our problems. Many of us have fond memories of climbing a tree, sitting in a tree house, or just gazing at swaying branches. The poetry of trees makes us feel rooted and resilient.

Resilience is a characteristic we embrace as individuals and as a community. With the aftermath of Hurricane Ian fresh on our minds, mitigating for the impacts of severe weather and becoming more climate resilient continues to be a relevant design criterion for our community. Additionally, more than half of the people on the planet live within urbanized areas today and this trend will continue and expand in the future as we expect greater rapid urbanization in metropolitan areas in Florida, the US, and the globe. Much of the urbanization in Florida will occur on rural lands or green undeveloped tracts within suburban and urban areas. As this development continues to occur, people will have an increased need to connect with nature and each other to maintain well-being and personal resilience.  Trees, urban forests, and green infrastructure will play an increasingly important role in creating resilient communities that support public health and provide quality of life to a wider portion of the population.

Trees are a building block of resilient cities and green infrastructure

Within cities, trees can be found along streets, parks, trails, campuses of public buildings, commercial parking lots and plazas, residential open spaces, and amenity areas and within yards. This patchwork creates the urban forest.  Trees within the urban forest provide multiple benefits that make communities more resilient like mitigating for extreme heat. Trees reduce heat reflected off roads and buildings, clean the air, capture carbon, capture storm water, reduce the volume and velocity off run-off, provide cover and forage for birds and wildlife, and provide food, wood, respite, and scenic value to people.

Trees are a component of green infrastructure which can also be composed of rain gardens, bioswales, permeable pavement, green roofs, and other elements that daylight stormwater and handle it more locally at the source through percolation and evaporation. Gray infrastructure includes gutters, drains, pipes, and tunnels that collect, concentrate, and move stormwater, trash, chemicals, and waste rapidly to ponds, lakes, rivers, and the ocean.  Green infrastructure like grey infrastructure carries planning, installation, maintenance, and replacement costs that require consideration in community resilience planning and investment.

Stakeholders can take action to support community resilience by preserving, planting, maintaining, and replacing trees in the urban forest, keeping in mind that trees are a building block of resilient cities.

• Support policies and implement plans that require trees along streets and support root growth with soil cells.

• Plan and implement tree succession plantings and increased canopy within existing parks, trails, and public natural lands.

• Plan for access to a park withing a ten-minute walk of most residents by maintaining and implementing a community parks system master plan.

• Plan and implement increased tree canopy on school campuses and other public building campuses creating outdoor classrooms and gathering spaces.

• Enforce tree ordinances in commercial areas especially parking lots where trees have a shorter lifespan and expand tree root area during parking lot renovations.

• Support policies that encourage HOAs to plant more trees in their open space.

• Support and implement tree planting along ponds and other water bodies.

• Encourage homeowners to plant native landscapes that include trees appropriately located within yards.

• After severe weather, consider tree replacement costs in addition to debris cleanup costs.

• Support the community acquisition of undeveloped land.

• Support innovative redevelopment of existing urban and industrial lands that reduce impacts to the planet and people.