Urban heat is a growing challenge in our City, with rising temperatures exacerbating the urban heat island effect. One of the most effective solutions to mitigate this issue is expanding tree canopy coverage. Trees provide shade, cool the environment through transpiration and reduce surface temperatures in densely built areas, where heat can become trapped by concrete and asphalt.

Temperature differences between locations contain canopy and locations with canopy gaps can be significant, as seen in the pictures below.

The NSW Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI) is a valuable tool that identifies areas in the Sydney Greater Metropolitan Area that are more susceptible to the adverse effects of urban heat. It draws insights from three critical components:

• Exposure: This assesses how much a population is exposed to urban heat, considering local weather conditions, built environment characteristics and socio-economic disparities.
• Sensitivity: It examines the socio-economic characteristics of the population that might increase vulnerability, including factors like advanced age and social isolation
• Adaptive capacity: This component evaluates the extent to which a population can adapt to external factors, such as access to the internet or the presence of cooling amenities

The CBCity Public Tree Explorer is a great way to find out about the Street and Park trees near you, with data from Council's Tree Management System.

Please note that while we strive to keep our data up to date, this resource may not be 100% accurate. We do periodic updates to our tree data in bulk, so some trees may have been removed and new tree plantings might not be shown yet. You can keep up to date with the tree explorer on our website.