Evaluation Summary and Metrics: "Urban Forests: Environmental Health Values and Risks"

Understanding the health impacts of tree planting and re-greening is central to understanding the co-benefits and costs of climate and biodiversity-focused policy. The paper "Urban Forests: Environmental Health Values and Risks" begins to address this question in a context in which the climate and biodiversity benefits may be small compared to the more immediate health effects: the re-greening of a mega city. We organized two evaluations of this paper. The two evaluations both recognise the significance of the work, but diverge in their assessment of the paper's causal identification. Nonetheless, this does not diminish from the paper's important impact implications: urban regreening has large positive impacts through substantial reductions in PM2.5 concentrations despite increases in allergic reactions to the increased pollen loads. To read these evaluations, please see the links below.