It’s a shame about the city tree. It stands in a parking lot or sidewalk and hardly gets enough water – no wonder, says May Reid-Marr, project manager at the non-profit Urban Forest Institute, that city trees often look a bit neglected. “You can see that they are a little withered or much smaller than you are used to,” she says. But they are not bad trees. They are simply the wrong trees for the location – and sometimes also for the climate that prevails in the city.

Trees are dying all over the Bay Area. In Oakland, as of early this year, no new saplings had been planted since 2008, so about 6,000 trees are lost each year. Despite spending eight times more money than Oakland, San Francisco plants 1,000 fewer trees than it intended and is one of the cities with the lowest tree canopy density in the country. Across the Bay, “tree deserts” overlap with historically disadvantaged communities – poorer neighborhoods with higher pollution levels and a higher heat index. Tree health and neighborhood health go hand in hand: Pollution, asthma rates and even high blood pressure are lower in areas with more urban trees. But the poor conditions for trees in hotspots are only getting worse with climate warming. “Many trees can normally survive if they get enough water – but they won’t thrive,” says Reid-Marr. We’ve chosen the wrong trees, she says.

A prime example, unfortunately, is the area’s most popular street tree and one of the most common in the country: the sycamore, which needs moist, well-drained soil to thrive. Poorly adapted trees are “more susceptible to disease, don’t form a good canopy and don’t reach full size,” says Reid-Marr. They need more care to survive. “Many trees planted in California don’t even survive 10 years.”

Restoring our patchy urban tree canopies is a national concern—and Congress appropriated $1.5 billion to do so in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. Thirteen Bay Area cities and local organizations will receive a total of $42 million from the U.S. Forest Service, about half of the $104 million awarded to California. This money will give cities the opportunity to reforest much of the lost trees—hopefully with climate-resilient species. That’s where Reid-Marr’s organization comes in; the Urban Forest Institute, based in San Luis Obispo, received $3.8 million to help Californians choose the right trees for the job, whether for urban plantings, commercial developments, or private backyards.

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Previously, UFI and UFEI (Urban Forest Ecosystems Institute, an initiative of California Polytechnic State University) have joined forces to develop SelecTree, an online tool that helps people select trees based on desired characteristics, including whether they are adapted to the climate of a particular zip code. With the new funding, Reid-Marr now plans to update the database and ensure that the trees recommended meet the requirements. The website features special lists compiled by ecologists, such as this one for large, climate-adapted trees for the Bay Area.