Real estate values and ecosystem services: Correlation levels

Abstract

The market value of urban property depends not only on its specific characteristics, but also on reference macro-economic variables such as socio-demographic, productive, infrastructural, and environmental quality and associated ecosystem services. The links between urban property real estate values and ecosystem services, particularly those generated by urban forests, are not yet sufficiently investigated and hence are the focus of this research. The study site is the City of Syracuse, New York, USA, with well characterized urban forest ecosystem services and property values. The study correlated real estate values and parameters of economic condition (per-capita income), ecosystem services (carbon sequestration), and urban forestry system (tree canopy area). The median home value correlation with both per capita income had an R2 = 0.8748 and with carbon sequestration it had an R2 = 0.7757. The data was obtained in the online i-Tree Landscape tool. Geographic information systems analysis was used to create maps that support analysis of the correlation levels between the involved variables.