Zurich/Singapore – Researchers at ETH Zurich in Singapore have developed a method to quantify the impact of trees on urban ecosystems by using Google Street View. One of their findings is that planting more trees in Singapore could help cool the megacity.

The Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich runs a research centre in Singapore called the Singapore-ETH Centre’s Future Cities Laboratory. Researchers there have now developed a method to quantify the extent to which street trees regulate urban ecosystems. The researchers analysed nearly 100,000 images from Google Street View using an algorithm to quantify the proportion of green canopy coverage across more than 80 per cent of Singapore’s road network.

Thanks to their method, the researchers concluded that increasing the cover of the street tree canopy could reduce ground surface and air temperatures on Singapore’s streets. They were also able to show that the relative quantity of the canopy could also serve as an indicator of evaporative cooling from leaves and rain interception.

This new and relatively inexpensive method makes it possible to rapidly estimate the amount of shade provided by street trees, explains ETH in a statement. It could be used to help urban planners identify areas of a city with low shade and prioritise the planning of new trees.