Abstract
The climate of urban area is an unstable type with considerable seasonal variation in precipitation wind speed, and temperature and it grows worse. Besides, ozone is a serious air pollutant in most of large cities. So worldwide, some of large cities are investing in forestry options to offset their climate problems, but lack of information has hindered comparisons of urban un cost effectiveness to other options. This research intends to study the economic benefits of tree shading of 19 parking lots in UCD campus. The economic benefits of tree shading are air conditioning savings, air quality, stormwater run-off, and other benefits. Especially, this study focuses how much the economic benefit of parking lot shading has been increased from 1995 to 2003 year by aerophoto. Some data on dimensions of parking lots and the number, size, tree species, and location of trees around each parking lot was inventoried. Two aerophotos(1995,2003) were used in order to analyze the increasement of tree canopy in 19 parking lots for 8 years. However, increasing coverage of trees and managing them for healthy growth would not be sufficient for avoiding adverse impacts by future climate change. Additional measures should be followed such as an increase of energy use efficiency and development of substitute energy. For example, coverage of trees help to save cooling energy by blocking solar radiation reaching parking cars and building structures through shading, and creating cool micro-climates through evapotranspiration. They also reduce heating demand by decreasing air infiltration and heat conduction out of the interior of buildings. Proper arrangement of vegetation over the parking lots can reduce cooling and heating costs. So proper planting design around hard space paving including species selection and location can significantly save cooling and heating energy. And a reduction in car and building's heating and cooling costs results in the reduction in energy demand which causes to emissions of air pollutants. Total increased tree canopy from 1995 to 2003 is $8,470.45m^2$ and the economic benefits is US$ 5,282.10. The economic benefit of one tree has been US$ 7.21 for 8 years. And an annually increased benefit is US$ 0.9 per a tree. If this kind of study is applied to studying the economic benefits of tree canopy in parking lots of Korea, it could result in guidelines of tree planting of parking lots. Because the trees selected for planting in parking lots were not suitable for an environment, the guidelines should contain a recommended list of trees. The guidelines should propose the shading percentage of parking lot when we plan a parking lot and contain the maintenance of trees in order to maximize the economic benefits of tree canopy.