So what\u2019s going on here? The researchers reckon this increased resiliency comes down to something no tree can thrive without: water.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve ever seen your local parks department or a nonprofit plant a tree on the street, you might have noticed them placing a plastic bladder around its trunk<\/a>. This provides consistent water for the sapling to help it grow big and strong in its most vulnerable years. Elsewhere in the metropolis, crews make sure that green spaces are sufficiently hydrated. And in backyard gardens, residents use hoses or drip irrigation systems to keep their flora verdant.\u00a0<\/p>\n The built environment itself is inadvertently helping here, too. The traditional way of designing a city called for funneling water into sewer systems as quickly as possible to prevent pooling and flooding. As rainwater cascades off buildings and sidewalks, it flows into patches of dirt with trees, where it can soak into the ground.<\/p>\n Which is all to say: Urban vegetation is often pampered compared to what\u2019s growing wild in the countryside. This is an advantage in the long term, but doubly so during relentless droughts and increasingly miserable heat waves. While rural trees desiccate, their compatriots in cities are regularly attended to.\u00a0\u201cThey\u2019re showing this kind of great ability to be resilient, most likely from just intentional management from people, or just the way we\u2019ve simply designed cities to move and work,\u201d said Eric North, program manager for urban forestry at the Arbor Day Foundation, who wasn\u2019t involved in the new research.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Urban trees aren\u2019t just nice, scientists say \u2014 they\u2019re mandatory<\/a><\/p>\n For many plants in the city, additional heat can actually help. The urban heat island effect raises temperatures perhaps 20 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in nearby rural areas, because all that concrete and brick holds onto the sun\u2019s warmth. This is potentially deadly for people, on account of the mercury staying high through the wee hours and denying the body time to cool down and recuperate. (Indeed, nights overall are warming faster than days are<\/a>.) But it can be advantageous for well-watered plants, because the phenomenon is also in effect outside of summer. This is extending growing seasons, providing some species with extra time to flourish.<\/p>\n Interestingly, while these researchers found that vegetation was overall more resilient in cities, it was more so in the urban core compared to the outer neighborhoods. One theory why is that the heart of a city tends to be more developed and parks more rigorously tended. \u201cThe urban edge is not as stable as the urban core,\u201d Guo said.<\/p>\n However, just because all that greenery has been enjoying surprising resilience, that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s guaranteed to do so forever, as the impacts of climate change grow ever more dire. \u201cSome new ways to think about how to better sustain the urban area will become more and more important,\u201d said Jin Wu, an ecologist at the University of Hong Kong and coauthor of the new paper.<\/p>\n For one, cities are trying to prioritize planting native species, which may already be adapted to withstand drought. They\u2019re also looking to hotter places, importing species<\/a> that scientists already know work there \u2014 essentially getting ahead of the baking to come.\u00a0Selecting trees that are both drought-tolerant and have large canopies brings a double benefit, as the additional shade protects the surrounding dirt. \u201cI\u2019m assuming that\u2019s really what a driving factor here is,\u201d North said. \u201cThat it\u2019s keeping the moisture that\u2019s in the ground locked in, instead of evaporating off the ground, and so it\u2019s more available for plants to use.\u201d<\/p>\n Cities are also getting smarter about water. Los Angeles, for instance, is building \u201csponge city\u201d infrastructure<\/a>, things like roadside green spaces that allow water to soak into the ground and collect in cisterns rather than flow into sewers. It\u2019s also using spreading grounds \u2014 giant dirt bowls, basically, where rainwater is piped and allowed to percolate into the underlying aquifer<\/a>, from which it can be pumped during the dry season.<\/p>\n With proper water management, cities can remain green in the challenging decades to come. They\u2019re building out urban gardens, for example, which bring all the benefits of greenery in general and provide nutritious food for residents<\/a>. Scientists are also growing crops on rooftops<\/a> under the shade of solar panels, generating clean electricity and supersized vegetables.<\/p>\n In a weird way, then, cities are becoming more rural. Now we have evidence that with a little TLC, plants can ensure metropolises don\u2019t just survive, but thrive.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The next time you pass an urban tree, stop to appreciate what it\u2019s been through. As a youngster,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[3071,273,42251,111,139,69,147,4520,7059],"class_list":["post-630537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-cities","tag-environment","tag-extreme-heat","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-solutions","tag-yahoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/GettyImages-2272795415.jpeg\")
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