Hyde Park Tree Benefits:i-Tree Eco Technical Report

Hyde Park is an important green space in central London covering an area of over 142 hectares (344 acres) within the City of Westminster. The Park is joined on its western side with Kensington Gardens and almost (through the large traffic islandat Hyde Park Corner) with Green Park to the south-east. The park forms an outstanding corridor of open space and cultural heritage, stretching from Kensington Palace to Whitehall. One of the most significant elements of the park are its trees. These trees are considered the foundations of our ‘urban forest’.What is the definition of Urban Forest-? the ecosystem containing all of the trees,plants and associated animals in the urban environment, both in and around dense human settlements. The urban forest brings a dynamic aspect to the otherwise hard city, providing a range of benefits that include flood protection, pollution filtration, carbon storage, space for recreation and habitat for wildlife. However, in most landscapes the benefits provided by such ‘natural capital’ is often poorly understood. Consequently, these benefits (or ecosystem services) are often undervalued. Economic valuation of our natural capital can help to mitigate for development, inform land use change and reduce any potential impact through planned intervention to avoid a net loss of natural capital. Such information can be used to help make better management decisions. This report highlights the findings of a study to record the structure and composition of the trees in Hyde Park, calculate some of their functions (benefits or eco-system services) and to value the services provided by those functions. In order to produce values for some of the benefits provided by trees a state of the art, peer reviewed software system called i-Tree Eco1 (referred to as ‘Eco’ throughout the report) was used