The Triangle is losing trees... and getting hotter

Joyce Clemons says she was enticed to buy her Durham County home five years ago because of the trees and shade surrounding her home.

"I wasn’t expecting this," Clemons said of the barren lot that is now her view.

The land surrounding her home was cleared to make way for hundreds of townhomes in the coming years, a loss that she says is more than just aesthetic.

"The sun beats down on my house now," Clemons said.

Clemons said her electric bill is now $75 more than it normally is.

Development has increased the area covered with impervious surfaces like buildings and roads that heat faster than land with vegetation and take longer to cool once the sun sets.

Wake County’s hot spots, also called urban heat islands, align with areas covered with impervious surfaces.

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According to a new assessment, Wake County has lost 11,120 acres of tree canopy from 2010 to 2020. That's an area more than 36 times bigger than Dorthea Dix Park and equivalent to more than 8,400 football fields.

Wake County planning director Timothy Maloney says beyond heat mitigation, the county’s trees remove 11,022 tons of pollutants from the air, absorb 414,710 tons of carbon dioxide, and intercept more than 8.1 billion gallons of stormwater each year.

"[The tree canopy] does a wealth of things related to climate change because as we get more rains storms, more storm frequencies, and higher rainfalls ... the more vegetation and trees we have on the ground, the better it is to help control that runoff," Maloney said.

Apex, Cary and Holly Springs all lost more acres of tree canopy than Raleigh over a decade.

Morrisville is the town with the lowest percentage of tree canopy in Wake County.

"I don’t think it’s a matter of curbing growth," Maloney said. "Its about managing growth better."

Aside from preserving trees, the study identified 1.5 million opportunities to plant new trees in the county.