TY - JOUR
T1 - Urban trees, air quality, and asthma
T2 - An interdisciplinary review
AU - Eisenman, Theodore S.
AU - Churkina, Galina
AU - Jariwala, Sunit P.
AU - Kumar, Prashant
AU - Lovasi, Gina S.
AU - Pataki, Diane E.
AU - Weinberger, Kate R.
AU - Whitlow, Thomas H.
N1 - Funding Information:
The lead author wrote an outline of this paper while conducting a dissertation in City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania . He extends gratitude to committee chair Tom Daniels and committee members Eugenie Birch and Stephanie Pincetl for encouraging him to ask challenging questions. He also expresses appreciation to Vanessa Sellers, Susan Fraser, and staff at the LuEsther T. Mertz Library and Humanities Institute at The New York Botanical Garden for encouragement and support through an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship; as well as Tigran Haas at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Planning and Environment, for support as a visiting scholar. Max Dilthey assisted with research, and Prashant Kumar acknowledges funding support via the iSCAPE (Improving Smart Control of Air Pollution in Europe) project funded by the European Community's H2020 Programme (H2020-SC5-04-2015) under Grant Agreement No. 689954.
Funding Information:
The lead author wrote an outline of this paper while conducting a dissertation in City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. He extends gratitude to committee chair Tom Daniels and committee members Eugenie Birch and Stephanie Pincetl for encouraging him to ask challenging questions. He also expresses appreciation to Vanessa Sellers, Susan Fraser, and staff at the LuEsther T. Mertz Library and Humanities Institute at The New York Botanical Garden for encouragement and support through an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship; as well as Tigran Haas at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Planning and Environment, for support as a visiting scholar. Max Dilthey assisted with research, and Prashant Kumar acknowledges funding support via the iSCAPE (Improving Smart Control of Air Pollution in Europe) project funded by the European Community's H2020 Programme (H2020-SC5-04-2015) under Grant Agreement No. 689954.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019
PY - 2019/7
Y1 - 2019/7
N2 - A “call to action” has been issued for scholars in landscape and urban planning, natural science, and public health to conduct interdisciplinary research on the human health effects of spending time in or near greenspaces. This is timely in light of contemporary interest in municipal tree planting and urban greening, defined as organized or semi-organized efforts to introduce, conserve, or maintain outdoor vegetation in urban areas. In response to injunctions from scholars and urban greening trends, this article provides an interdisciplinary review on urban trees, air quality, and asthma. We assess the scientific literature by reviewing refereed review papers and empirical studies on the biophysical processes through which urban trees affect air quality, as well as associated models that extend estimates to asthma outcomes. We then review empirical evidence of observed links between urban trees and asthma, followed by a discussion on implications for urban landscape planning and design. This review finds no scientific consensus that urban trees reduce asthma by improving air quality. In some circumstances, urban trees can degrade air quality and increase asthma. Causal pathways between urban trees, air quality, and asthma are very complex, and there are substantial differences in how natural science and epidemiology approach this issue. This may lead to ambiguity in scholarship, municipal decision-making, and landscape planning. Future research on this topic, as well as on urban ecosystem services and urban greening, should embrace epistemological and etiological pluralism and be conducted through interdisciplinary teamwork.
AB - A “call to action” has been issued for scholars in landscape and urban planning, natural science, and public health to conduct interdisciplinary research on the human health effects of spending time in or near greenspaces. This is timely in light of contemporary interest in municipal tree planting and urban greening, defined as organized or semi-organized efforts to introduce, conserve, or maintain outdoor vegetation in urban areas. In response to injunctions from scholars and urban greening trends, this article provides an interdisciplinary review on urban trees, air quality, and asthma. We assess the scientific literature by reviewing refereed review papers and empirical studies on the biophysical processes through which urban trees affect air quality, as well as associated models that extend estimates to asthma outcomes. We then review empirical evidence of observed links between urban trees and asthma, followed by a discussion on implications for urban landscape planning and design. This review finds no scientific consensus that urban trees reduce asthma by improving air quality. In some circumstances, urban trees can degrade air quality and increase asthma. Causal pathways between urban trees, air quality, and asthma are very complex, and there are substantial differences in how natural science and epidemiology approach this issue. This may lead to ambiguity in scholarship, municipal decision-making, and landscape planning. Future research on this topic, as well as on urban ecosystem services and urban greening, should embrace epistemological and etiological pluralism and be conducted through interdisciplinary teamwork.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2019.02.010
DO - 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2019.02.010
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85063747684
SN - 0169-2046
VL - 187
SP - 47
EP - 59
JO - Landscape and Urban Planning
JF - Landscape and Urban Planning
ER -
