Bed-Stuy Gained More Tree Coverage Than Any BK Neighborhood: Data

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — If Bed-Stuy is looking greener these days than it used to, you aren't imagining things: the neighborhood had the sharpest increase in tree coverage than any other part of Brooklyn, and most of the city, in recent years, according to a new study.

The first-of-its-kind report by the Nature Conservancy used three-dimensional imaging technology to map the amount of land covered by overhead tree canopy. It found that between 2010 and 2017, New York's tree coverage grew by more than 3,200 acres, or about 1.7 percent.

Broken down by neighborhood, the second-biggest increase was in Bed-Stuy's Community District 3, whose tree coverage grew by 3.6 percent from 2010 to 2017 — a net gain of nearly 68 acres.

The neighborhood was only beaten by Central Harlem's Community District 10, whose tree coverage grew by 4.2 percent during the time period. Closest in Brooklyn was nearby Community District 8 in Crown Heights, where 34 acres of trees increased the canopy by 3.3 percent in the eight-year span.

Trees play a key role in urban equity, helping to lower temperatures, convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and absorb rainwater, researchers told THE CITY, which first reported on the study.

Mapping current tree coverage can help the city protect and improve it in the future — especially in low-income neighborhoods where vegetation is harder to find, they said.

Specific to Bed-Stuy, the researchers noted that areas near or next to Prospect Park tended to have higher "stocking rates," or the number of trees compared to the neighborhood's capacity.

Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, Park Slope's Community District 6 and Community District 8 had some of the highest "stocking rates" in the borough. In Community District 6, which includes Gowanus and Red Hook, the rate was highest at almost 82 percent, the study shows.

Not all neighborhoods were as fortunate as Bed-STuy. Waterfront areas of Southern Brooklyn and Queens, like Coney Island, Canarsie and the Rockaways, lost much of their tree canopies during those eight years — likely due to flooding from Superstorm Sandy

Another notable area that lost trees in that span: Central Park, which experienced a 2.9 percent drop in its canopy coverage, amounting to a net loss of 25 acres.

A spokesperson for the Central Park Conservancy told Patch that the loss could be attributed to extreme weather and invasive species.

Read the full "Future Forest NYC" study at the Nature Conservancy website.

Patch reporter Nick Garber contributed to this report.