Gainesville's Trees Save Energy

Recent doctoral work in geography by Ryan Jensen at the University of Florida-Gainesville revealed that the city of Gainesville has twice the leaf coverage of the nearby city of Ocala. When Jensen then checked average utility bills from the two cities, he found that Ocala residents were paying $126 more per year than Gainesville residents. While several factors could be involved in this effect—the ratio of apartments to single-family homes is higher in Gainesville, for example, and Ocala is a bit further south—researchers feel certain that

urban tree coverage is a significant contributor to these energy results. The analytical computing technique that Jensen used involves artificial neural networks that mimic biological systems. This technique would have to be modified for use in other cities with different types of tree coverage.