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Re:New York City mapped its trees and calculated each one’s ... by taneq on Friday December 02, 2016 @01:36PM (#13091075)
As you point out, it's usually fairly straightforward to calculate the costs attached to a given tree.

When you say you're not convinced that it's possible to be really sure you've captured all of the benefits, do you mean captured their exact value? Or a hard upper bound of such? Or a soft upper bound with a given confidence interval? Or even just enumerated all of the benefits?

I think calculating an upper bound with confidence interval for the value of a tree in a city would be a really interesting exercise. To do it properly you'd have to account for everything from tangible benefits (shade, reduced CO2) to vague generalities such as residents who "feel happier living in a city with lots of trees". I think it'd be possible, but definitely not trivial.

Re:New York City mapped its trees and calculated each one’s ... by soVeryTired on Sunday December 04, 2016 @04:56AM (#13099443)
How would you evaluate your estimate? I can't think of any objective way of testing whether you have the 'right' answer.
Re:New York City mapped its trees and calculated each one’s ... by taneq on Sunday December 04, 2016 @09:10AM (#13100024)
Short of using two similar cities and varying the tree density in one while making the other a control group, I'm not really sure. I was thinking of the number more as a way to assign value than discover it. Good question though!