How well is Sudbury's re-greening effort working? Scientists crunching the numbers

Scientists in Sudbury are looking at the differencere-greening has made to the local environment and what steps need to be done in the future so the city can be carbon neutral by 2050.

In the 1970s, a re-greening project started in the city. Since then, 10 million trees have been planted to try and undo the damage caused around the turn of the last century. That's when ore was smelted in the open roasting pits that burned for days. The smoke killed vegetation and blackened rocks around the city.

Those trees have made a difference to Sudbury's landscape and environment. Peter Beckett, a biologist at Laurentian University has been involved with the re-greening project from the start. He says they want to see how much of a differencethose trees are making when it comes to the environment.

Beckett says it's a good time to do so as the United Nations has declared the next ten years as the Decade on Ecological Restoration.

"So it would be good to know how much carbon has been fixed by our trees in Sudbury at the start of that decade," he said.

"And then perhaps to be able to see at the end of the decade whether we've actually improved the situation and we've got more carbon being fixed."

Beckett says it's also important to know to help meet the goal to have Sudbury be carbon-neutral by 2050.

"We need to know how much we're getting fixed now so we can see in 2050 if we have actually improved the situation," he said.

Beckett says to determine how much of a difference a tree is making, a calculation is done based on the tree's height, diameter and biomass.

The good news? Over the past 40 years, those trees have made a significant impact.

"But probably much more importantly is how much is being put on per year, 1.7 tonnes of carbon are being added to each hectare area," he said.

"Each person in Sudbury at the present time is emitting about two tonnes of carbon per year."

Beckett says although those trees have made a large impact, there's more to be done.

"If all the citizens of Sudbury and industries participate in some of the plans outlined by the community action plan, I think it's actually doable," he said.

"Trees will do their part. The goal in there is to actually quadruple the amount of trees in Sudbury. We've got lots of work to do in the re-greening program."

He says other ideas to help include changes to transportation and reducing energy consumption in buildings.