Environment
Cooling Dallas’s Concrete Jungle
Using GIS technology, three environmental organizations are teaming up with residents to plant 1,000 trees in areas that need it most.
Finding shade isn’t always easy in Dallas, Texas. Though home to one of the nation’s largest urban forests—the 6,000-acre Great Trinity Forest—there’s a dearth of trees in the rest of the city. At the same time, the urban heat island effect has made Dallas one of the fastest-warming cities in the United States.
“If we continue to add impervious surfaces and remove trees, we could have an urban heat island that covers almost half the city,” said Matt Grubisich, director of operations and urban forestry at the local Texas Trees Foundation.