Benefits of Trees

Trees are vital resources that offer tons of benefits to humans, and the environment. These provide food; prevent soil erosion, and preventing water pollution amongst several benefits. It’s difficult to give any major disadvantage of trees because the planet needs more of them.

If you’re wondering what benefits to derive from trees, you’ll find lots of them here. Understanding these advantages enables you better appreciate what trees offer thereby doing all it takes to grow more around your surroundings.

Categorizing Tree Benefits

To properly identify the many benefits offered by trees, we’ll have to consider these under different categories such as economic benefits, social benefits, environmental benefits, and communal benefits. These help our discussion flow much better. Let’s proceed to business shall we?

i. Economic Benefits of Trees

The economic benefit of trees are quite varied as they include reduction in the operating cost of utility infrastructure, reduction in cooling costs, improving the value of a property, and also serving as a windbreak. Each of these points will need further explanation as follows;

• Reduction in Operating Cost of Utility Infrastructure

Stating this point alone without some explanation will be a bit difficult to grasp. Here, the use of energy through the burning of fire wood may significantly reduce demands on utility infrastructure. This in turn impacts operating costs as such is significantly reduced.

Due to lower demands on infrastructure, the resulting drop in operating costs is enjoyed by other consumers. This is an indirect benefit of trees.

• Reduction in Cooling Costs

Summer is the time of year when cooling costs tend to be higher as HVAC systems need to be operated more often to lower temperatures in buildings. While that’s true, there are natural ways to achieve the same objective. Trees help lower temperatures, thus lowering your cooling costs.

• Improving Property Value

The valuation of a property is determined by many factors including its landscape. Here, well-positioned trees around a property will attract a higher bargain price when selling your property. The opposite is true for one without trees.

• Serving as a Windbreak

The value of trees around a home becomes more evident in winter when the unforgiving blasts of cold winds are intercepted by them. This helps with more efficient heating of your home during such times.

ii. Social Benefits of Trees

Still on tree benefits, what types can be included here? There are several that include the commemoration of events, anti-depressant, helping with learning, and also speeding the healing process. Let’s discuss these points.

• Commemoration of Special Events

It’s common knowledge that quite a number of events are commemorated by growing trees. Examples of these include Earth month, Arbor day, World Environmental Day, and also the remembrance of a dead person(s). These significant events are marked by tree planting.

• Anti-Depressant

It’s widely said that spending time in nature is the best medicine. This has been found to have scientific backing as some therapy treatments require patients to spend some time each day in nature. There have been amazing results to show for that. Stress is reduced by such simple activity.

• Helping with Learning

Learning capacities in kids have been found to receive significant boost when some learning time was spent outdoors in green spaces. This shows the significant benefits offered by trees and vegetation. As more learning institutions embrace this practice, it’s only a matter of time before revolutionizes how information is passed.

• Helping to Speed up the Healing Process

Another social benefit of trees is seen in its speed up of the healing process. Patients in hospitals have been found to show signs of fast recovery when there’s a view of nature (trees) around.

iii. Environmental Benefits of Trees

The environmental benefits of trees are quite numerous. These include evaporative cooling, support for wildlife, improving the quality of air, cutting down erosion, and production of oxygen.

• Evaporative Cooling

Evaporative cooling is most noticeable in urban areas where urban heat island effects are rampant. These trees shield direct sunlight from hitting or reaching parking lots and other structures.

• Support for Wildlife

For wildlife, trees are essential to their survival. These creatures depend on trees for food, shelter, and cover from predators. Wildlife species are known to have been badly affected by destructive events like wildfires, and major clearing of forest reserves such as in the Amazon.

• Improving Air Quality

One unmistakable benefit of trees is the improvement of air quality. Here, harmful substances and pollutants are absorbed by trees while oxygen is released into the environment. That is why trees are referred to as the lungs of the earth.

• Cutting down Erosion

Runoff water is one of the primary causes of erosion. When moving unhindered, it quickly worsens which creates major problems. With trees, incidences of erosion are greatly reduced. Here, the root systems hold the soil together thus limiting flooding and erosion. The more trees there are in an area, the lower the chances of erosion.

• Production of Oxygen

One of the functions of trees that benefits humans and animals is the production of oxygen. Areas with more trees tend to have cleaner air compared to polluted areas like cities.

iv. Communal Benefits of Trees

Trees also offer communal benefits in the sense that they complement architecture while also benefitting everyone. What more? Trees can serve as screens, can be highly valuable to a community, and also tend to have a calming effect on commuters.

• Complementing Architecture

Trees offer lots of value to the surroundings with neighborhoods and building designs being further accentuated by them.

• Benefitting Everyone

With trees around, anyone close enough enjoys the benefits irrespective of whether you planted these or not. For example, a tree belonging to your neighbor will cast some shade over your property during hot summers. Also, they provide windbreaks during critical times like winter.

• Serving as Screens

Trees help shield out unwanted views. This benefit extends to noise pollution coming from busy areas like highways etc.

• Calming Effect on Commuters

Roads lined up by trees have been found to have a more calming effect on commuters than those without. This in turn reduces accidents as there are fewer cases of over speeding.

Trees hardly have any negatives as they offer a ton of advantages to the environment, to humans, and animals.