Adelaide lagging in list of leafiest Australian cities

A national study has found the leafiest cities and suburbs – but despite its parklands and verdant Hills, Adelaide’s not one of them. See how your area fares.

Adelaide is one of the least green cities in the country, beating only Perth for tree canopy and way behind the eastern capitals, the first Australia-wide study of its kind has found.

Aerial survey company Nearmap analysed 5000 suburbs across Australia to identify those with the best tree cover.

The research team then calculated what proportion of each city’s population lived in populated “leafy” suburbs with a total tree cover greater than 20 per cent.

Adelaide was seventh among capital cities with just over one quarter (26 per cent) of residents living in leafy suburbs. Brisbane came in at number one, at 79 per cent.

Nearmap artificial intelligence systems senior director Dr Michael Bewley said he was surprised to find “some really good stories” about cities and suburbs that fit “a lot of people and a lot of buildings and a lot of trees in the one area”.

A typical leafy street in Stirling in the Adelaide Hills. Picture: Nick Clayton

“Often we have this idea that it’s a trade-off between ‘Are we going to cut all the trees down and build buildings, or are we going to leave it natural?’ but there are suburbs where there are a lot of people, the population density is really high but there’s a lot of greenery,” he said.

“So for me it paints a picture of hope that we can have really liveable cities, because it’s not just the environment angle – trees are important for mental health, for physical health, for water quality and for heat island effects particularly.”

BEST ADELAIDE SUBURBS FOR TREE CANOPY COVER

Best in the city centre and Adelaide Hills – Crafers West, 63 per cent of the suburb’s area
Best in the northern suburbs – Banksia Park, 29 per cent
Best in the southern suburbs – Belair, 46 per cent
Best in the western suburbs – Mile End, 16 per cent 

Dr Bewley said local governments across Australia including across Adelaide had signed up to the mapping service, which also allowed comparison to historical aerial imagery datasets.

The Green Adelaide landscape management board said the study provided “terrific additional information”. However acting director Stuart Collard said Nearmap used “an emerging and novel method that is quite different to what has been undertaken across Adelaide previously”.

“Nearmap’s data focuses on residential areas and doesn’t include the hundreds of public parks across the state,” he said.

He said Green Adelaide was “in the process of capturing a complete tree canopy and urban heat data set”, updating the last effort in 2018, to better understand changes and trends”.

Best in the city centre and Adelaide Hills for tree canopy cover was Crafers West, 63 per cent. Aerial photography. Picture: Nearmap.

Aerial image of Crafers West adjusted to highlight tree canopy cover. Picture: Nearmap