Composition of trees and population characteristics in the Lote MIDC industrial zone

Urban tree cover delivers an array of ecosystem services, including air pollutant reduction, stormwater runoff reduction, building energy savings from reduced heating and cooling costs, and the associated avoided carbon emissions from reduced energy use, and carbon dioxide sequestration. The study aims to inventory all the tree species with their common name, botanical name, tree height, girth at breast height, canopy spread and origin of the tree species found in Lote MIDC and perform diversity analysis. Tools like Ravi altimeter and measuring tape were used for measuring tree height, girth at breast height and crown width. Urban forestry has shown that they are very important in mitigation of the environmental degradation while the assessment of these trees remains low. The trees were identified by analyzing morphological characteristics (Leaf structure, trunk texture, seeds/fruits) and further analysis was done in PAST 4.13 software for diversity indices. A total of 625 trees were recorded which comes under 56 different species and 25 plant families. Native species found were 67.52% whereas exotic species were 32.48%. The Shannon–Wiener Index (H′ = 3.159) indicates moderate to high tree diversity, low Dominance index (D = 0.0702) and high Simpson’s Diversity index (1–D = 0.9298) suggest low species dominance, though moderate Mango, False Ashoka and Gulmohar. Overall the study highlights that species composition supports the urban sustainability by providing different range of ecological services.