Urban green spaces provide many benefits to urban dwellers, from the environmental functions of cooling, air purification, stormwater mediation and biodiversity habitat, to contributions to mental and physical well-being, sense of place and connections to community. Urban environmental justice requires that there is equitable access to urban green spaces, distributed throughout the city.

Urban trees provide substantial ecosystem services, and trees on private land are a sizeable segment of overall urban tree cover. Trees provide shade, cooling and habitat, and contribute to aesthetic values, sense of place, and urban dwellers’ mental and physical wellbeing. With increasing size and density of cities, tree cover decreases, as buildings replace private...

As cities grapple with the impacts of heatwaves, exacerbated by the urban heat island effect and progressively amplified by climate change impacts, green spaces can cool urban areas, as well as providing many other functions and benefits to city dwellers’ health and wellbeing, and habitat for urban biodiversity. Fact sheet 1: Outlines urban heat causes...

Australian cities contain millions of trees that provide amenity, important ecosystem services such as cooling and slowing stormwater, and provide habitat for birds and animals. There is growing recognition that increasing temperatures due to urban heat and climate change are a threat to some tree species in our cities. This study analyses the risk of...

In Australia, there is an increasing interest in using extensive green roofs to make buildings more sustainable and provide a number of social, ecological, aesthetic and thermal benefits to cities. The potential of green roofs to reduce building energy consumption has been extensively studied overseas in a variety of different climates. However, in Australia the...