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Exposure to allergenic tree pollen is an increasing environmental health issue in urban areas. 

However,reliable, well-documented, peer-reviewed data on the allergenicity of pollen from common tree species in urban environments are lacking. Using the concept of ‘riskscape’, we present and discuss evidence on how diferent tree pollen allergenicity datasets shape the risk for pollen-allergy suferers

in fve cities with diferent urban forests and population densities: Barcelona, Montreal, New York City, Paris, and Vancouver.

We also evaluate how tree diversity can modify the allergenic risk of urban forests. 

We show that estimates of pollen exposure risk range from 1 to 74% for trees considered to be highly allergenic in the same city. 

This variation results from diferences in the pollen allergenicity datasets, which become more pronounced when a city’s canopy is dominated by only a few species and genera. 

In an increasingly urbanized world, diverse urban forests ofer a potentially safer strategy aimed at diluting sources of allergenic pollen until better allergenicity data is developed.

Our fndings highlight an urgent need for a science-based approach to guide public health and urban forest planning.