Thomas, Holly L. February 1991. The Economic Benefits of Land Conservation. Technical Memo of the Dutchess County Planning Department, Dutchess County, New York. The county's voters realized that protecting the groundwater system by buying important areas above it made better economic sense than finding another water source. Brabrec, Elizabeth. 1992.
Trees Make Sense.
Trees decrease the amount of water that runs off a site by breaking the impact of the rain and slowing the flow, allowing time for water to infiltrate the soil. This reduction has implications in the infrastructure costs of storm sewer capacity of sewage treatment plants, flooding of rivers and streams and the loading of sediment and pollutants into rivers and streams. Approximately 5 to 10 percent of the current electric demand in cities is spent to cool buildings just to compensate for the heat island effect. Trees are the only part of the municipal infrastructure that actually increases in value every year. Money spent by a municipality on roads, fire hydrants, and street lights depreciates in value every year.