Ranked: Urban Tree Cover of European Capital Cities

Overview

Extreme heat kills approximately 2,700 people annually in Europe and the UK, and if global temperatures shoot past the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target to 2.0°C, that number could climb to nearly 50,000 per year.

Cities have a key role to play in adapting to extreme heat, by expanding their urban tree canopy, which reduces ambient temperatures and decreases the heat island effect, where the built environment absorbs and amplifies extreme heat events.

In this visualisation, we look at the top 10 and bottom 10 European capital cities, ranked by share of urban tree cover, according to data from the European Environmental Agency.

Key Takeaways

• Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has the highest share of urban tree cover, at 76.3%, representing 2,021 out of 2,637 square kilometres of the city.
• At the other end of the spectrum, is Reykjavík, Iceland, whose harsh sub-polar climate and large urban area (12,977 square kilometres), contributed to the meagre value of 1.6%.
• Where you draw a city's border contributes a great deal to the overall ranking: for example, London has an urban tree cover value of 19.8% if measured by functional urban area, which captures the city centre and the built-up area around it, but crashes to 1.4% if measured according to just the city centre.