How Trees Play a Key Role in Nashville's Environmental Remediation
Trees are often key elements in projects that restore degraded or developed land to dynamic green space. Initiatives that remove pavement and revitalize polluted ground create opportunities to plant trees for long-term environmental benefits. In Nashville, which is naturally a wooded place, planting trees throughout our neighborhoods and caring for them is essential to managing the built environment.
In this article, we'll look at how trees are making real impacts in public efforts to improve and maintain Nashville’s landscape. Towards the end, we share some thoughts on how homeowners and businesses can implement their own restorative projects on private property and within the city’s neighborhoods.
What Is Environmental Remediation?
Remediation is about “remedying,” referring to the process of undoing damage to the environment. A remediation project is often associated with industrial sites (such as gas stations, factories, and pavement), but it is also important to rural industries (like agriculture, logging, and mining). Remediation projects may also involve restoring damage caused to ecosystems by natural events (including storms, wildfires, and plant diseases), especially in urban areas, where natural regeneration is very slow or unlikely.
The remediation process may be extensive if there are underground tanks, pipes, or other industrial infrastructure that need to be removed or if the soil is hazardous and requires rehabilitation. Other projects may be less complex, such as removing pavement (known as “depaving”) or restoring degraded or depleted land. While trees and other plants can be planted after industrial materials are removed, they also play a crucial role in the restoration process by absorbing, breaking down, or storing certain pollutants from the ground, water, and air, thereby actively helping to clean the environment.
Trees and Remediation
Although not all remediation projects aim to restore green space post-cleanup, those that do contribute important long-term effects to the local environment:
Production of ecosystem services
Stabilization of the built environment
Normalization of urban greenery
When green space is restored within the built environment, it supports the area-wide canopy’s ability to provide local benefits like stormwater management and cooling effects from shade and moisture release. These more comfortable conditions also support local wildlife and public health.
An environment that is in good ecological condition will tolerate weather stressors and absorb the effects that might make the built environment uncomfortable. For example, trees help reduce the heat island effect, where urban areas absorb heat and are warmer on average than surrounding areas.
Similarly, a well-maintained canopy will help manage rain and stormwater, which can reduce the burden on sewer systems and prevent flooding and damage to homes and other buildings. Trees also purify air and help reduce the presence of pollutants, which can be found in high concentrations in urbanized places. Further, trees reduce noise pollution in densely populated areas.
In general, the presence of trees and green space within a city, and their resulting benefits, creates a normal expectation that they will be maintained and replaced as necessary so that their benefits continue (including increasing residential property values). This encourages the development of tree-friendly laws and organizations, a local culture of gardening and landscape care, and an awareness of the importance of trees and other greenery to local environmental health.
Examples of Remediation in Nashville
As a major urban center, Nashville has been (and continues to be) an area of ongoing development, both in density and outward extent. Preservation initiatives have allowed some forested areas to remain in wilderness conditions (such as the Highland Rim forests and the various parks in and around Nashville), while laws regarding tree planting requirements for new construction help ensure that trees accompany building activities. With the similar goal of maintaining local vegetation and essential ecosystems despite ongoing urban development, some remediation projects aim to deconstruct sites and install natural cover within the built environment.
For example, Cumberland Park in downtown Nashville is an example of a remediation project (between 2008 and 2012) that restored industrial space and established green cover in the urban center. The city’s river waterfront had been contaminated with lead and other hazardous pollutants by over a century of heavy industrial use (in particular, by logging and shipbuilding). The city-led project cleaned and redeveloped the area, planting native vegetation (including various species of native trees) to support local ecosystems and create six and a half acres of safe, accessible public green space along a portion of the river.
Another example of Nashville remediation is the Cumberland River Compact’s pavement removal efforts. The organization is leading depaving initiatives on lots across the city, removing asphalt cover and planting beautiful and impactful vegetation that benefits the community and ecosystem alike. One example of their work was with the Edwin Warner Park restoration project in 2022, where they supported the replacement of 64,000 square feet (about one and a half acres in total) of asphalt drives in the park with grass and trees. This was part of a larger planting project of over a hundred native hardwood trees (such as river birch and swamp white oak) along the river to stabilize the bank and improve the woodland area.
One more notable remediation-based tree planting initiative is the Nashville Tree Conservation Corps’ own Shelby Avenue Arboretum. This community-driven project was launched in response to the 2020 tornado that devastated East Nashville, aiming to restore the urban canopy and reconnect residents with nature. Hundreds of trees have since been planted along a two-mile stretch of Shelby Avenue, featuring a wide variety of species (including tulip poplar, eastern redbud, and Yoshino cherry, among many others) to establish restorative and engaging canopy cover along the major traffic corridor.
The Importance Of Private Restoration Efforts
While large-scale, public efforts have important impacts on shared spaces in the city, most of Nashville’s green cover is residential, and because of that, homeowners can take restorative steps on their own parcels to help manage the local environment. Private property maintenance is an essential contribution to area-wide environmental management, as each unique property is just one part of Nashville’s whole ecosystem.
We encourage homeowners and business leaders to reach out to us at NTCC to partner with us to tackle remediation projects large and small! With our network of professionals and resources, we can help with planning landscape restoration projects, create meaningful connections, or otherwise figure out the best way for us to support your particular ecological goals.
Planting Trees for Environmental Health
Planting new trees in open spaces, building soil quality with mulch and compost, and removing unused pavement (like extra driveway space or old patios) are ways that property owners can manage their own landscapes for healthy and beneficial green spaces where natural ecosystems can thrive.
For a range of urban-hardy native trees, browse the Nashville Tree Conservation Corps’ tree sale to find the right one(s) for your yard’s particular soil and space. If you’re not in the market for a tree, consider donating a tree for us to plant, or volunteer with us to help plant and care for trees in Nashville! You can also make a financial contribution to NTCC, which we gratefully apply every dollar of toward furthering our mission to support our city’s canopy.
If you haven’t already, subscribe to our email newsletter for regular updates on our activities and information about our city’s trees. Check out our Linktree for more ways to connect!