The UBoC / LEAF team at the University of Leeds have published the first and largest of three reports which aim to provide financial values for Leeds trees in by measuring the work they do as carbon stores, pollution removers, flood protectors and more.

The primary tool used was i-Tree Eco, with other similar tools employed to measure additional functions.

The first report values the trees on the university campus. Future reports, which use slightly different surveying methods because the team are as interested in the effectiveness of these tools as they are in the values the trees, will measure the highly wooded Middleton ward in south Leeds, and then the whole city, ward by ward.

UBoC hope to develop tools which could potentially be used by Friends groups to easily and quickly measure ‘ecosystem services’ in a park or green space (i-Tree is very time-consuming and requires expert data processing), but these lie some time in the future.

The report can be read here.