LIDAR-based Assessment of Urban Tree Benefits from a OneHealth perspective

Urban treescapes uniquely contribute to healthier and more resilient cities. By providing a wide range of ecosystem services, urban trees help combat climate change, enhance biodiversity, and improve public health. These benefits align with the One Health framework, which highlights the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. While public initiatives, such as urban tree-planting schemes, often receive significant attention from scientists and policymakers, the substantial role of trees in private spaces, including domestic gardens, remains underexplored. While gardens cover more than one third of Western European urban areas and offer untapped potential for fostering One Health, research on their contribution, particularly across urbanization gradients, is limited. Our study addresses this gap by quantifying and comparing ecosystem services provided by garden trees, street trees, and public trees in Flanders, Belgium. Ecosystem services were analyzed across five urban sprawl typologies in 13 cities. Consistent with the One Health framework, we categorized urban tree benefits into three clusters: (1) biodiversity enhancement, (2) climate adaptation and mitigation, and (3) human well-being. Using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data, we segmented tree canopies and derived dendrometric characteristics, which were used in connectivity analysis and i-Tree ECO software to assess the trees' contributions to ecosystem services. Our findings reveal that garden trees contribute 5-8% of ecosystem service provision compared to street and public trees in open area, 15-28% in dispersed development, 30-47% in allotment and ribbon development, 34-47% in urban periphery and 29-42% in urban core. These results underscore their importance in urban planning and green infrastructure management and stress the need for inclusive approaches that integrate garden trees into sustainable urban development for all.