Urban Greening & Urban Densification

A cross-disciplinary team develops and measures future ‘what-if’ scenarios for the urban forest in a densifying neighbourhood regarding urban greening, GHG emissions and livability.

Project Profile

Sponsor
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

elementslab Team
Cynthia Girling (PI)
Agatha Czekajlo
Jeri Szeto
Noora Hijra
Samantha Miller
Ronald Kellet
Ilona Le Carre (Visiting International Research Student)

and formerly
Emma Gosselin
Taelynn Lam
Yuhao Bean Lu
Jennifer Reid

Urban Forestry Team
Sara Barron
Lorien Nesbitt
Stephen Sheppard
Cindy Zhaohua Cheng
UBC Faculty of Forestry and Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning

and formerly
Kanchi Dave

Communities need cross-cutting tools and knowledge for climate action planning to elevate progress. What is unclear for many communities is exactly which changes, such as densification, transit, walkable neighbourhoods, or tree planting bring the most beneficial social outcomes, or future conflicts, and how incremental changes over longer time horizons may add up.

Using a sandbox modeling approach, this project will inform both long-range and day-to-day planning for climate action, urban planning and the urban forest. Our cross-disciplinary team, with expertise in urban design, urban forestry and climate change engagement will investigate where and how much trees can contribute to climate change planning, particularly adapting cities to increasing temperatures to maintain livability in increasingly dense neighbourhoods. We build upon previously developed and measured future ‘what-if’ scenarios of projected neighbourhood densification patterns, add future what-if scenarios for urban forest strategies and measure them for urban greening, GHG emissions and livability.

The project will reveal new information about about when, how, how much trees increase comfort, decrease street-level temperatures and heat island effects, decrease heating/cooling of buildings, improve walkability and where and how future urban densification and urban forests are in conflict all to inform policy decisions and community action.