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!
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.