Cooler and Healthier: Increasing Tree Stewardship and Reducing Heat-Health Risk Using Community-Based Urban Forestry
Edith B. de Guzman (eb3@ucla.edu),
Erica L. Wohldmann and
David P. Eisenman
Additional contact information
Edith B. de Guzman: Institute of Environment & Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
Erica L. Wohldmann: Department of Psychology, California State University Northridge, Northridge, CA 91330, USA
David P. Eisenman: David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 8, 1-25
Abstract:
Heat exposure poses health risks that disproportionately burden disadvantaged communities. Trees protect against heat, but significant barriers exist to growing robust urban forests. In drier climates, complex logistics of watering during a multi-year establishment period pose a challenge because street trees are typically unirrigated and funding for maintenance is generally unavailable. This study tested the impacts of varying theory-guided community engagement approaches on beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors related to foster street tree stewardship and individual-level heat mitigation actions in 116 households in Los Angeles County, USA. We tested a control intervention against experimental messaging focused on either public health or environmental health, and also segmented participants by the degree of prior household engagement with a local tree planting group. Outcomes measured were soil moisture, tree health, and survey responses indicating benefits and barriers related to tree stewardship. Results indicate that intervention messages had limited effect on these outcomes, and that level of engagement by the tree planting group was a stronger predictor of tree stewardship. We also found that tree stewardship correlated positively to heat protection measures, suggesting that environmental engagement may be an effective portal to reducing heat risk.
Keywords: urban forestry; tree stewardship; climate adaptation; urban cooling; extreme heat; urban sustainability; civic ecology; heat mitigation; environmental psychology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6716/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6716/ (text/html)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:8:p:6716-:d:1124541
Access Statistics for this article
Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu
More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager (indexing@mdpi.com).