Tree Maps

The Newport Tree Conservancy is proud to host the Newport Tree Register, an interactive online tree map which allows users to view or map trees using smartphone or computer, and calculates the benefits of those trees on the surrounding air and water quality.

Our tree map helps us track the success of planting programs, allows student propagators to track the trees they have nurtured from seed or cuttings as they are planted throughout the city, and allows volunteers to record which trees have been mulched, watered, or surveyed for dangerous pests.

Why Map Rhode Island’s Trees?

Over 90% of Rhode Island’s population lives in urban areas and depends on the essential ecological, economic and social benefits provided by the urban forest.

According to the USDA Forest Service, our urban forests provide a multitude of benefits:

• Trees improve air quality by lowering air temperatures, altering emissions from building energy use and other sources, and removing air pollutants through their leaves.

• By storing carbon and reducing carbon emissions from power plants through lowered energy use, urban trees have a far-reaching impact on global climate change.

• The preponderance of asphalt and concrete in urban settings causes a “heat island” effect that increases urban air temperatures by several degrees. A shaded urban neighborhood provides heat island mitigation that reduces business and household energy use.

• The reduction in expansion/contraction of asphalt caused by the shade from urban street trees can increase pavement life and reduce road maintenance costs, thus providing a synergistic reduction in the use of petroleum products that are found in roadway overlays.

• Trees intercept rain on their leaf, branch and stem surfaces and by absorbing water through their roots. For every 5% increase in tree cover in urban communities, there is a 2% reduction in stormwater runoff and its corresponding contaminants that would otherwise enter local waterways as well as burden treatment plants.

• Urban trees increase residential and commercial property values, and tree-lined commercial streets enjoy a marked increase in retail activity.

• A healthy tree canopy provides a myriad of social and health benefits to the urban population.