Charlotte, known for its trees, lost 8% of its canopy in just 6 years, study says

The tree canopy that shades much of Charlotte is in marked decline, a recent study found, including in residential neighborhoods that have long been characterized by their leafy streets.

Charlotte lost 8% of its canopy between 2012 and 2018, according to a study by the University of Vermont in collaboration with the nonprofit group TreesCharlotte. The city still had a “robust” 45% of tree canopy — the acreage shaded by trees — in 2018 but it is threatened, the study said.

The findings deepen the difficulty Charlotte would have in achieving its long-held goal of achieving a 50% tree canopy by 2050, a target city officials acknowledged last year will be hard to meet.

The city gained about 2,200 acres of canopy through replantings, the study found, but it lost nearly 10,000 acres, much of it in large tracts of forest razed for development. While the loss of trees is immediate, it takes years for newly planted saplings to grow enough to add to the canopy.

A more effective strategy, the researchers said, is to preserve trees in a city long known for its lush urban forest.

City Council District 1, in central Charlotte, and south Charlotte’s District 6 lost the most canopy compared to 2012 levels, the study found. District 3, in west and southwest Charlotte, lost the most acres of trees, largely as swaths of forest were cleared for new subdivisions.

Leafy old neighborhoods, including Cherry and Myers Park, were among those seeing the steepest declines, according to the study and analysis by UNC Charlotte. UNCC produced a neighborhood-by-neighborhood map of canopy conditions across the city.

Mature trees add to property values, but TreesCharlotte noted that they also make the city more livable by cleaning the air, filtering water and reducing temperatures.

“Trees aren’t there just for their looks,” said executive director Chuck Cole. Most of the city’s trees are on private property, Cole said, and their owners represent the best chance of stabilizing the decline.

TreesCharlotte plants about 5,700 young trees a year and counts an 85% success rate in keeping them alive by teaching local residents how to tend them. Cole said ongoing efforts will be needed to help low-income residents bear the costs of planting and maintaining trees.

Charlotte has regularly monitored the extent and health of its tree cover as it grew to become the nation’s 18th-largest city.

A University of Vermont study commissioned by the city in 2014 characterized Charlotte’s tree canopy at 47% and holding steady despite surging development. A 2017 report found that publicly-owned trees lining Charlotte’s streets are dwindling as they near the end of their natural lives.

Last October, Charlotte City Council approved changes to the tree ordinance that, despite opposition from environmental activists, gave developers new flexibility in placing trees on urban sites. The changes would let builders plant trees in planters and rooftops in order to meet city requirements.

This year the city launched a Tree Canopy Action Plan that will become part of the Charlotte Future 2040 Comprehensive Plan. The plan “will better define policies that preserve, restore and enhance the canopy,” the city says, while building on past initiatives.

The plan will use data analysis of the canopy and community conversations and will produce recommendations to update the city’s tree ordinance.

The University of Vermont/ TreesCharlotte study used aerial imaging methodology developed by the U.S. Forest Service to quantify the city’s canopy.

Not all the 4,700 acres of canopy lost in residential areas between 2012 and 2018 was due to new construction, the study noted. Researchers said they found thousands of examples in which trees were removed with no apparent sign of construction. They speculated that storms, disease, old age or “changes in attitudes to tree canopy” may explain those losses.

Most of the losses were among trees of medium height, the study shows, indicating they were removed before reaching their natural end of life. At full maturity, those trees would have increased the canopy.

This story was originally published July 16, 2020 at 1:50 PM.