Compensatory value of urban trees in the United States

"Based on recently collected field data from selected U.S. cities and analysis of national urban tree cover, this paper estimates total compensatory value of the urban forest resource of the coterminous United States, as well as for eight individual U.S. cities. These data reveal how urban forest structure and value differ across the United States and how valuable the urban forest resource is in terms of its compensatory or structural value." [UMN]

"Understanding the value of an urban forest can give decision makers a better foundation for urban tree management. Based on tree-valuation methods of the Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers and field data from eight cities, total compensatory value of tree populations in U.S. cities ranges from $101 million in Jersey City, New Jersey, to $5.2 billion in New York, New York. Compensatory values represent compensation to owners for the loss of an individual tree and can be viewed as the value of the tree as a structural asset. Based on national urban forest tree cover data, the total compensatory value for the urban forests of the 48 adjacent United States is estimated at $2.4 trillion." [Abstract]