Valuing the benefits of the urban forest: a spatial hedonic approach

This paper measures the benefits of the urban forest by examining its effect on housing prices. A Geographic Information System is used to develop a measure of the urban forest, the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index, from satellite imagery and to construct other variables from a variety of sour...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of environmental planning and management 2008-11, Vol.51 (6), p.717-736
Main Authors: Payton, Seth, Lindsey, Greg, Wilson, Jeff, Ottensmann, John R., Man, Joyce
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Construction
Copyrights
Documents
Econometrics
Environmental management
Forestry
Forests
Geographic information systems
hedonic model
Housing
Housing market
Housing prices
Impact analysis
Land use
Management
Mathematical models
Neighborhoods
Planners
Policies
Price models
Prices
Property
Proposals
Remote sensing
Satellite imagery
Satellite navigation systems
Spatial analysis
Spatial discrimination
spatial econometrics
Studies
Urban areas
urban forest benefits
urban form
Vegetation
Vegetation index
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Summary:This paper measures the benefits of the urban forest by examining its effect on housing prices. A Geographic Information System is used to develop a measure of the urban forest, the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index, from satellite imagery and to construct other variables from a variety of sources. Spatial hedonic housing price models for the Indianapolis/Marion County area are estimated. The models indicate that greener vegetation around a property has a positive, significant effect on housing price, holding everything else constant. This effect is dominated by measures at the neighborhood level. These findings indicate that property owners value the urban forest, at least in part, by the premium they pay to live in neighborhoods with greener, denser vegetation. These findings also indicate that public action to maintain and enhance the urban forest may be warranted. Planners and urban foresters can use these findings to inform public and policy debates over urban forestry programs and proposals.
ISSN:0964-0568
1360-0559
DOI:10.1080/09640560802423509