After receiving a $61-million boost from the federal government in 2024, the City of Calgary is ramping up its tree-planting program in a bid to expand the city’s lagging urban canopy.
The funding — from Ottawa’s former 2 Billion Trees program — was intended to support planting 930,000 new trees across Calgary over five years. The program was introduced by former prime minister Justin Trudeau, but was phased out in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget,
Nearly 168,000 new trees were planted across Calgary in 2025 and more than 180,000 will be planted this year, according to a city report that will be brought to council next week. A similar number of plantings is slated for 2027 and 2028.
The report highlights that tree canopy is still not evenly distributed across Calgary, with some communities — particularly in newer areas — having much lower coverage.
The report also includes a breakdown of tree planting data, by ward and by neighbourhood. According to the data, the two wards with the most tree plantings planned for this year are Ward 3, in north-central Calgary, and Ward 5, in the deep northeast. Both wards will see between 60,000 and 70,000 new trees planted this year.
A graph from the city shows that Ward 5 has the lowest tree canopy in Calgary, at less than three per cent coverage. In comparison, Ward 6, in the southwest, has the most land covered by urban forest, at more than 20 per cent.
The wards with the lowest number of new trees planned this year are Ward 2 in the northwest and Ward 13 in the southwest, according to the same graph.
But Paul Atkinson, the city’s urban forestry lead, said it’s more useful to measure canopy coverage on a neighbourhood basis, rather than by ward. He noted that Ward 5, for instance, is home to the Calgary International Airport, which has few trees.
“The community level helps us develop actionable criteria, street by street,” he said.
Trees provide extensive environmental, public health and well-being benefits, Atkinson said, such as improving air quality, stormwater management, wildlife habitat provision and community character, in addition to reducing heat island effects.
Four years ago, a tree equity report from Nature Canada revealed that Calgary has far less urban forestry coverage than Canada’s other largest cities.
The study indicated Calgary’s tree canopy covered a little over eight per cent of the city — well below Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, which all boasted more than 20 per cent tree coverage across their municipal boundaries.
Calgary’s residential tree canopy, by community, in 2022.
Canopy percentages were measured using satellite imagery as well as 3-D lidar data.
Atkinson said the tree deficit in Calgary can be partially explained by the fact the city was founded on a prairie landscape, which didn’t have a large tree coverage to begin with.
“When you compare to some of these other centres, Calgary has a higher elevation, the least amount of rainfall and did not have large existing stands of natural trees that the city was cut into or surrounded by,” he said. “Those factors are huge.”
Nature Canada’s study also showed that Calgary’s tree canopy was reduced slightly between 2012 and 2022. The depletion was caused by a large number of aging trees that needed to be felled, significant weather events and a rise in urban development.
Calgary’s parks plan and municipal development plan outline a target of increasing the city’s urban canopy to 16 per cent by 2060, with a focus on increasing tree coverage in underserved neighbourhoods.
“We are improving tree equity by reviewing the historical context of tree planting practices, supporting access to information and engagement in all communities, and planting diverse tree species to help grow a healthy and resilient canopy,” the report says.
As of 2024, Calgary’s urban forestry coverage was 9.62 per cent, according to the report. The city has more than 500,000 inventoried trees and more than 2,200 hectares of forested natural areas.
Atkinson said canopy percentages are only one indicator of the health of a city’s urban forest, however, noting it’s also a lagging indicator. That’s because it can take five to 10 years after a tree is planted, depending on its size, before that tree is acknowledged in the city’s canopy measure.
“It is really an outcome factor of what happens once the trees are established, and we can start to pick them up on the various aerial scans and imagery, which contributes to the percentage,” he said.
“If you think about the exponential growth of trees we have in Calgary, pretty much everything you see around the city has been installed by somebody at some point. It’s a very young canopy, for the most part.”
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