A modeling study of the impact of urban trees on ozone

Abstract

Modeling the effects of increased urban tree cover on ozone concentrations (July 13–15, 1995) from Washington, DC, to central Massachusetts reveals that urban trees generally reduce ozone concentrations in cities, but tend to increase average ozone concentrations in the overall modeling domain. During the daytime, average ozone reductions in urban areas (1 ppb) were greater than the average ozone increase (0.26 ppb) for the model domain. Interactions of the effects of trees on meteorology, dry deposition, volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, and anthropogenic emissions demonstrate that trees can cause changes in dry deposition and meteorology, particularly air temperatures, wind fields, and boundary layer heights, which, in turn, affect ozone concentrations. Changes in urban tree species composition had no detectable effect on ozone concentrations. Increasing urban tree cover from 20 to 40% led to an average decrease in hourly ozone concentrations in urban areas during daylight hours of 1 ppb (2.4%) with a peak decrease of 2.4 ppb (4.1%). However, nighttime (20:00–1:00 EST) ozone concentrations increased due to reduced wind speeds and loss of NO x scavenging of ozone from increased deposition of NO x . Overall, 8-hour average ozone concentration in urban areas dropped by 0.5 ppb (1%) throughout the day.