Measuring the value of trees

Maybe only god can make a tree, but only people can put a price on it ($):

Now, for the first time, the [New York City] Parks Department can actually translate the value of the city’s trees into real dollars and cents. And as expected, it’s a big number.

Step 1 was a tree census, a two-year process that sent more than 1,000 volunteers to count every tree on every street in the [New York] city. The census results were then fed into a computer program that spit out a dollar value for each of the 592,130 trees counted, a figure that does not include the roughly 4.5 million trees in parks and on private land.

The program, called Stratum, was developed by researchers at the University of California at Davis and the United States Forest Service. It takes into account several factors, including a tree’s impact on local property values, its contribution to cleaning the air by absorbing carbon dioxide, and how much its shade helps reduce energy consumption.

Factoring in the costs associated with planting and upkeep, New York City’s street trees provide an annual benefit of about $122 million, according to the Parks Department. The study concludes that New York receives $5.60 in benefits for every dollar spent on trees.

...

The information on the economics of the city’s trees gives the Parks Department concrete evidence when it comes to budget discussions, [parks commissioner] Benepe said. “We plan on using these values as a baseline to say that this is what we have now, and argue for additional funds to plant more trees,” he said.

Does anyone know anything about "Stratum"? It sounds like it uses a mix of the damage function approach to estimate the carbon benefits and the hedonic approach to estimate the property value impacts. You must always wonder about double counting of benefits when methods are mixed.

Comments

[David Garen]

These studies assessing ecosystem services from the Canadian Boreal Forest may be of related interest. Sorry, I can't comment on the methodologies used. In any case, the value of the ecosystem services determined is big and far exceeds the value of the standard economic activities in the region. Interesting ...

Counting Canada's Natural Capital: Assessing the Real Value of Canada's Boreal Ecosystems
http://borealcanada.ca/pdf/Boreal_Wealth_Report_Nov_2005.pdf

The Real Wealth of the Mackenzie Region
http://borealcanada.ca/pdf/MackenzieReport.pdf

David

[John Tyndall]

check out: http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/programs/cufr/stratum.shtml

[Chirkos]

What would be the value of a tree in the African wildlife parks? ANy study ou can point me to.
Thx