The hidden intelligence of urban trees
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–5, which are based on the reading passage below.
AFor decades, city trees were valued mainly for the shade they cast and the beauty they brought to otherwise hard landscapes. Today, a growing body of research is revealing something more complex: an urban forest behaves like a living piece of infrastructure.
BTrees cool streets in two ways. Their leaves block solar radiation, while the process of transpiration releases water vapour and lowers the temperature of the surrounding air. The effect is not evenly distributed, however. A continuous canopy can cool a neighbourhood far more effectively than the same number of isolated trees.
CResearchers are now combining satellite imagery with street-level sensors to understand where planting makes the greatest difference. Early projects tended to count trees. Newer studies measure canopy volume, species diversity and the distance between green areas.
DThe findings have changed how some planners think. Rather than treating every available pavement gap as a planting site, they are designing connected corridors that link parks, school grounds and residential streets.