Trees for green streets: An illustrated guide
Planning and conservation › Urban development and revitalization › Tools for designing streets › Trees for green streets
This handbook is now available. The handbook describes the role of street trees in managing stormwater and includes detailed color drawings of the trees that best perform this function in the Portland metropolitan area.
How to order
Handbooks are 11 inches wide by 8-1/2 inches tall in size, with soft covers and spiral bindings.
Metro Region Residents
Single copies of the handbooks are free (including shipping) to residents of the metro region. There is a charge for multiple copies.
Trees for green streets: An illustrated guide
Published: June 2002
Price: free![Trees for green streets [cover]](http://library.oregonmetro.gov/images/ACFNDJGbgiJb.jpg)
(Please note: shipping address must be located within metro region to qualify for one free copy)
Residents Outside Metro Region
Guides are available for purchase online using the link below.
Trees for green streets: An illustrated guide
Published: June 2002
Price: $9.95
Street trees perform many functions and provide many benefits including calming traffic, improving air quality and conserving energy. Trees for green streets explains how to use street trees as a stormwater management tool. This resource is intended to be used with the updated Creating livable streets: Street design guidelines for 2040 and the book, Green streets: Innovative solutions for stormwater and stream crossings.
Street trees perform a variety of functions that help reduce the amount and rate of stormwater runoff entering the piped stormwater system. Trees absorb water through their leaves, branches and roots. Trees planted in biofiltration swales slow down water flow even more by allowing water to infiltrate into the soil. While all street trees perform these functions, particular species may perform them better than others depending on characteristics such as:
- persistent foliage
- canopy spread
- longevity
- growth rate
- drought tolerance
- tolerance to saturated soils
- resistance to urban pollutants (air and water)
- tolerance to poor soils
- root pattern
- bark texture
- foliage texture
- branching structure
- canopy density.
Appropriate tree species are illustrated in the book, along with a description of major characteristics and advantages and disadvantages of each tree. The street tree guide focuses on the Portland, Ore. region, but tree suggestions apply to any West Coast temperate climate from Vancouver, B.C. to parts of Northern California.
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Tools for designing streets
Discover practical information for designing safe and healthy streets with four handbooks published by Metro.