Hyderabad: Hyderabad’s climate resilience begins with its trees. But the city doesn’t even know how many it has.Hyderabad is getting hotter, its air is becoming dirtier, groundwater is depleting, and concrete continues to replace the very ecosystems that once kept the city cool. Yet, despite years of rapid urban expansion that occurred over its green cover, Hyderabad still does not know one of the most basic numbers needed to plan for a climate-resilient future — how many trees it actually has.A Penn State study estimates that one person would need about 730 trees to make up for the pollution they create in a year through everyday activities such as driving, using electricity, travelling, running household appliances and more.Yet, Hyderabad lacks even a baseline estimate of its standing tree population.Previous studies have estimated that India has only around 24 trees per person — a figure that falls well short of the study’s recommendations.‘Can’t blame El Niño alone’The impact became especially visible this summer when Hyderabad recorded temperatures nearly 1 to 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than a year before that. For instance, around mid-May, when the city was experiencing around 43 degrees, at the same time last year the temperature was hovering around 41.5 to 42 degrees Celsius. While many linked the spike to the El Niño phenomenon this year, meteorologists argue that climate variability alone cannot explain the city’s long-term warming trend.“We cannot simply dismiss it as the El Niño effect because we are witnessing a warming trend year after year,” said YV Rama Rao, senior meteorologist with the Telangana Development and Planning Society.According to him the warming trend is a result of its local climate.“The replacement of green spaces with concrete infrastructure has significantly reduced Hyderabad’s natural ability to remain cool. Trees are among the most effective and simplest cooling mechanisms available to cities. As we lose them, urban temperatures inevitably rise,” he said.Experts note that even where overall green cover appears reasonable on paper, its uneven distribution leaves many residents exposed to significantly higher temperatures during summer. And the first step towards correcting this imbalance is a comprehensive tree census.Environmentalist Uday Krishna said Hyderabad urgently needs a scientific inventory of every standing tree in the city, recording its species, approximate age, health condition and location.“A proper tree census should not merely count trees. It should document every individual tree, identify damaged, infected or poorly maintained specimens, and help authorities understand which trees require protection or treatment before they become hazardous,” he said.Technology makes numbering easierUnlike earlier exercises where trees were manually numbered, Krishna added technology now makes the process significantly easier.“Geo-tagging allows every tree to be digitally mapped. Hyderabad is already divided into three police commissionerates and can easily be subdivided into smaller operational zones. NGOs, resident welfare associations, volunteers and civil society groups can all participate in conducting and maintaining such a database. The objective should be to build a greener city from the bottom up,” he said.He further suggested creating a dedicated task force, similar to HYDRAA, focused exclusively on protecting Hyderabad’s urban tree cover and preventing avoidable loss during development projects.Others also say Hyderabad’s challenge is not merely the overall quantity of trees but where they exist.Large institutional campuses, forest patches and a handful of affluent neighbourhoods continue to retain substantial green cover, while several densely populated residential areas remain dominated by concrete.For instance, University of Hyderabad and its surrounding area has lush greenery with a variety of species. However, just a two-minute walk away, it is heavily concretised with glass buildings and highrises. Similarly, in the heart of the city, KBR Park, a crucial lung space, saw removal of hundreds of trees for an upcoming flyover project.For years, different govts have highlighted plantation drives and improvements in green cover. They claimed to have spent approx 12,000 crore in planting 288 crores from 2015 till 2023 through Haritha Haram and from 2024 under Vanomohatsavam about 55 crore saplings till 2026 with 20 crores being allotted in its first year. However, there have been no reports on its success rate, post care and survival.Solution is to plant right treesEnvironmental experts argue that the discussion needs to move beyond counting saplings.“The solution is not merely planting more trees; it is planting the right trees in the right places,” said conservationist K Thulsi Rao, who has worked with state govts as well as international organizations including the United Nations on environmental projects in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.He warned that Hyderabad’s streets have increasingly been lined with exotic ornamental species such as Copperpod (locally known as Cornocopus), eucalyptus and gulmohar, many of which offer limited ecological benefits compared to native trees.“We need to prioritise biodiverse, native species. Exotic trees often lack natural predators, allowing them to become invasive and outcompete indigenous vegetation for water, nutrients and sunlight. Over time, this reduces biodiversity, alters soil chemistry and disrupts food chains that native birds, insects and other wildlife depend upon,” Rao explained.Researchers working on urban air pollution say selecting appropriate species is equally important for improving air quality.Rahul Goel, a researcher at IIT Delhi who studies air pollution, said native species suited to Hyderabad’s semi-arid climate, including neem, banyan, peepal and arjun, can serve multiple environmental functions.“These species are particularly effective because they can trap particulate matter such as PM2.5 while also providing extensive canopy cover. They should be prioritised along major roads where pollution levels are highest, and equally within residential neighbourhoods where people spend most of their time,” he said.Goel stressed that building climate resilience does not necessarily require expensive engineering solutions.“In many cases, returning to simple ecological interventions is enough to make a measurable difference. Protecting and planting suitable native trees remains one of the most practical climate adaptation strategies available, and it is an approach we are also advocating in Delhi,” he said.Another concern repeatedly flagged by experts is the lack of transparency surrounding compensatory afforestation.Whenever trees are felled for infrastructure projects, agencies are generally required to undertake compensatory plantation elsewhere. However, there is little publicly available information about where these plantations occur, how many saplings survive or whether they eventually replace the ecological services lost when mature trees are cut.Anjal Prakash, research director at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy at the Indian School of Business, said compensatory afforestation often measures success by the number of saplings planted rather than their long-term survival or ecological value.“Planting thousands of saplings cannot immediately replace mature tree canopies that have taken decades to develop. Similarly, tree transplantation has only limited success unless root systems are carefully protected, suitable sites are selected and long-term monitoring is ensured,” he said.According to Prakash, accountability needs to shift from plantation targets. “Compensatory afforestation should be followed with post care, dedicated maintenance budgets, independent audits and publicly accessible monitoring systems. Without these, plantation drives risk becoming one-time numerical exercises rather than meaningful climate interventions,” he said.
