Climate change increases global risk to urban forests

Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez (), Mark G. Tjoelker, Jonathan Lenoir, John B. Baumgartner, Linda J. Beaumont, David A. Nipperess, Sally A. Power, Benoît Richard, Paul D. Rymer and Rachael V. Gallagher
Additional contact information
Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez: Western Sydney University
Mark G. Tjoelker: Western Sydney University
Jonathan Lenoir: Université de Picardie Jules Verne
John B. Baumgartner: University of Melbourne
Linda J. Beaumont: Macquarie University North Ryde
David A. Nipperess: Macquarie University North Ryde
Sally A. Power: Western Sydney University
Benoît Richard: Normandie University, UNIROUEN, INRAE, ECODIV
Paul D. Rymer: Western Sydney University
Rachael V. Gallagher: Western Sydney University

Nature Climate Change, 2022, vol. 12, issue 10, 950-955

Abstract: Abstract Climate change threatens the health and survival of urban trees and the various benefits they deliver to urban inhabitants. Here, we show that 56% and 65% of species in 164 cities across 78 countries are currently exceeding temperature and precipitation conditions experienced in their geographic range, respectively. We assessed 3,129 tree and shrub species, using three metrics related to climate vulnerability: exposure, safety margin and risk. By 2050 under Representative Concentration Pathway 6.0, 2,387 (76%) and 2,220 (70%) species will be at risk from projected changes in mean annual temperature and annual precipitation, respectively. Risk is predicted to be greatest in cities at low latitudes—such as New Delhi and Singapore—where all urban tree species are vulnerable to climate change. These findings aid the evaluation of the impacts of climate change to secure long-term benefits provided by urban forests.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01465-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nat:natcli:v:12:y:2022:i:10:d:10.1038_s41558-022-01465-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01465-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().