A map of the city showing trends in the condition and development of urban greenery. Individual areas and trees are color-coded according to trend: thriving, resilient, stable, vulnerable, and endangered. Prosperous and resilient greenery is concentrated mainly in continuous green belts, parks, and forest edges, while vulnerable and endangered areas are more common in densely built-up areas and along major roads. A legend of trends and a scale of 0–500 m are included.

UpGreen
Tree Survival Capacity

Tree Survival Capacity shows which trees are likely to thrive in today’s conditions, and which ones are already close to failure. It combines tree vitality and local stress factors so you can target care and investments where they prevent losses most effectively.

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Lea Heise

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Close-up of colourful townhouses along a canal in central Copenhagen, with no visible greenery or street trees – highlighting the limited canopy coverage in dense urban areas flagged by the UpGreen analysis as a priority for future greening.

References

Copenhagen (Denmark)
In Copenhagen, UpGreen’s Survival Capacity assessment of hundreds of thousands of trees highlighted sectors with elevated risk and helped group actions by neighbourhood.

Lisbon (Portugal)
In Lisbon, UpGreen assessed approximately 320,000 urban trees using satellite based analysis and modelling. The Survival Capacity results showed 11,666 trees classified as Vulnerable or Endangered, with higher risk concentrations in dense and heavily built up districts. These findings support targeted green infrastructure planning and adaptation strategies under increasing heat and drought pressure.

Kuřim (Czech Republic)

In the city of Kuřim, UpGreen analysed 16,916 urban trees within the built up area. The Survival Capacity assessment showed that around 15 percent of city trees fall into the Vulnerable or Endangered categories, indicating elevated long term stress and reduced survival potential. The results provided Kuřim with a clear, city focused basis for prioritising tree care, renewal and climate adaptation measures.

Calculate Survival Capacity

UpGreen: measuring tree health, equity and climate benefits. Tree by tree, citywide. Using satellite data.

UpGreen identifies and evaluates trees across the city using satellite data and advanced modelling. We map tree crowns and assess key indicators that determine whether your greenery is thriving, cooling the city, sequestering, or silently declining. For the price of 10 cents/one tree.

Modules: Tree Survival Capacity, Tree Stress analysis, Tree productivity + prediction, CO2 Sequestration, Tree Cooling Effect.

More about UpGreen

What is Tree Survival Capacity?

Tree Survival Capacity indicates the current potential of a tree to thrive long term if site conditions stay unchanged. The index is built from two building blocks: current stress and current vitality (productivity), because long lasting stress shortens lifespan and trees with reduced vitality react more strongly to additional stress.

Each tree is classified into clear, decision ready categories:

Prospering: excellent condition, withstands stress with minimal difficulties

Resilient: strong ability to cope with stress and keep key functions

Stable: moderate survival ability, not in optimal conditions but likely to persist

Vulnerable: low survival ability, risks exist, sensitive to external impacts

Endangered: critically low survival ability, failure risk is imminent

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Urban map showing tree survival capacity across Copenhagen, with colour coded areas indicating endangered, vulnerable, stable, resilient, and prospering trees.

Stacked bar chart from the UpGreen audit showing survival capacity of trees across Lisbon's administrative units, categorized as prospering, resilient, stable, vulnerable, and endangered. Districts like Alcântara and Lumiar have a higher share of resilient trees, while Olivais, Marvila, and Penha de França show significant proportions of trees at risk. This analysis informs climate adaptation priorities and supports 3-30-300 rule implementation.

Benefits (why should you know this?)

Reduce tree loss and avoid wasted maintenance

Survival Capacity helps you focus care on the trees that need it most, especially the Vulnerable and Endangered categories. That is where targeted irrigation, soil improvements, or traffic related mitigation can prevent costly mortality.

Protect ecosystem services where the city needs them

Trees under prolonged stress lose performance over time, which affects cooling, carbon uptake, and overall resilience. Survival Capacity gives you a practical way to safeguard these benefits by acting early, before decline becomes irreversible.

Turn data into action for climate resilient planning
Instead of guessing where greenery will hold up under heat and drought pressure, you get a clear map based on observed vitality and measured stress drivers, ready for planning, budgeting, and project preparation.

Prioritize interventions with the highest impact

You can quickly identify hotspots where stressed and low vitality trees cluster, and plan measures at the right scale, from individual trees to street corridors and districts.

What this service includes:

You receive decision ready deliverables that fit directly into city workflows:

GIS layers for Tree Survival Capacity: ready to use in your GIS and asset management processes.

GIS Tree Survival Capacity - individual tree segments
GIS Tree Survival Capacity - city wide grid
GIS Tree Survival Capacity - city units

A clear report: explaining methodology, key findings, and priority areas for action.

A map handbook: for internal alignment, stakeholder communication, and reporting.

I need to know this

Four reasons cities use survival capacity

You prevent tree loss before it happens

Survival Capacity identifies trees that look fine today but are already under long term stress. This lets you intervene early and avoid sudden decline, safety risks and costly replacements.

You spend maintenance budgets where they have real impact

Instead of uniform care, you can target watering, soil improvement or protection exactly where trees are vulnerable.

You protect cooling, shade and climate benefits

Trees with low survival capacity gradually lose their ability to cool the city and store carbon. Knowing which trees will persist helps you safeguard ecosystem services where they matter most.

You get evidence for planning, funding and decisions

The outputs are GIS ready and easy to explain. They support adaptation strategies, green infrastructure planning and funding applications with clear, defensible data.