Resistance of urban trees to drought shaped by family and site in a semi-arid city

作者：José Luis Molina-Pardo, Esther Giménez Luque, Juan Gisbert, Emilio Guirado · 发表于：Urban forestry & urban greening · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.ufug.2025.129167 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Urban Green Space and Health、Urban Heat Island Mitigation、Tree Root and Stability Studies

Urban forests play a key role in mitigating climate change impacts and enhancing urban ecosystem services. However, urban trees are increasingly threatened by extreme drought events, especially under unfavorable growing conditions. We assessed drought resistance in 18,172 trees from 33 botanical families located in parks and streets of semi-arid Almería, southeastern Spain. Using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, we quantified resistance during extreme drought events between 2017 and 2023. Park trees showed significantly higher drought resistance than street trees, likely due to lower soil compaction, greater rooting space, and reduced heat stress. Street trees faced compounded stress from compacted soils, restricted roots, and elevated temperatures from impervious surfaces. Drought resistance varied notably across taxa. Gymnosperms generally outperformed angiosperms, reflecting physiological traits conferring greater drought resistance. Native species were more resistant overall, highlighting the benefits of local adaptation, though exotic species surpassed natives in street environments. Species from desert and dry shrubland origins had the highest resistance, followed by temperate, and lastly humid tropical origins, a pattern consistent in both parks and streets. These findings underscore the importance of aligning species selection with their biome of origin, prioritizing dry-origin taxa for streets and reserving less tolerant species for parks. Management strategies should i...