Trees provide a range of benefits for urban society including biodiversity enhancement, promoting better health and wellbeing  and increasing urban resilience to extreme weather such as heavy rainfall and hot summer temperatures.

Quantifying how much of a given area is covered by trees, when viewed from above, ie the tree canopy cover, provides a proxy for these current benefits and projections can be made for future benefits. Generally, the larger a tree canopy, the greater the ecosystem services provided by the tree. Urban Tree Canopy Cover (UTCC) is expressed as a percentage of the total area or in m2, ha2 or km2.