Summary of Tree Inventory and Benefits

  • 6,182 trees have been inventoried on Shorewood Hills public property (3,421 are street trees and 2,761 are found in parks and other Village green spaces).

  • The replacement value (Council of Tree and Landscape Appraiser’s formula) for these trees is $6.9 million (an average of $1,128 per tree).

  • Shorewood Hills receives $937,622 in annual benefits from its public trees. Comparing this to annual tree maintenance costs of $130,000, a benefit to cost ratio of 7:1 is calculated. For each dollar the Village invests in its forestry operations it receives $7.21 in return.

  • Annually, public trees in Shorewood Hills sequester nearly 2 million pounds of carbon. This is equivalent to driving an average car 1.9 million miles.

  • Trees in Shorewood Hills intercept 8.2 million gallons of stormwater per year resulting in an annual benefit valued at $221,917.

  • 5,130 pounds of air pollutants are removed annually by trees included in this inventory for a total value of $31,139 each year.

  • Aesthetic and cultural benefits provided by public trees were attributed a value of $620,674.

  • Energy savings, brought about by lower cooling and heating costs, total $228,841 annually for Village residents.

  • 116 different tree species were found within Shorewood Hills.

  • The top five most common tree species found were hackberry (8.7%), Norway maple (7.9%), black locust (5.7%), white oak (5.7%), and green ash (5.7%).

  • There were 360 trees in need of removal and 108 trees in need of safety prunes.

  • 63% of the trees inventoried were considered mature or old.

  • 65% of public trees inventoried were in good or excellent condition, while 8% were rated in poor or very poor condition.

  • 872 trees were located underneath or near utility lines (14% of the trees inventoried).

  • The total value of the public trees inventoried was $6,290,054.