Castries
2 km around Ciceron
Air quality now
AQI 28
77.0%
tree cover
Healthy tree cover
North America · air quality report · 1 city
Airleaf measures 1 city in Saint Lucia. Castries reads AQI 28 right now.
Updated . Lower is better on the US EPA index: 0–50 is Good, above 300 is Hazardous. Measured by Airleaf.
Saint Lucia
Deforestation · 2001–2025
Since 2001, Saint Lucia has lost about 1,110 hectares of forest (about 1,600 football pitches): 2.2% of the forest it had in 2000. Most of it (78%) was deforestation, forest cleared for good, mainly for farms, pasture and plantations.
Hectares of forest lost each year
| Year | Cleared for good | Can grow back | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 28 ha | 2 ha | 30 ha |
| 2002 | 7 ha | 4 ha | 11 ha |
| 2003 | 16 ha | 3 ha | 19 ha |
| 2004 | 32 ha | 8 ha | 40 ha |
| 2005 | 42 ha | 5 ha | 48 ha |
| 2006 | 84 ha | 3 ha | 88 ha |
| 2007 | 32 ha | 9 ha | 41 ha |
| 2008 | 50 ha | 6 ha | 56 ha |
| 2009 | 41 ha | 12 ha | 53 ha |
| 2010 | 81 ha | 13 ha | 94 ha |
| 2011 | 35 ha | 27 ha | 61 ha |
| 2012 | 54 ha | 13 ha | 66 ha |
| 2013 | 30 ha | 6 ha | 35 ha |
| 2014 | 36 ha | 5 ha | 41 ha |
| 2015 | 7 ha | under 1 ha | 7 ha |
| 2016 | 47 ha | 60 ha | 107 ha |
| 2017 | 54 ha | 30 ha | 84 ha |
| 2018 | 14 ha | 20 ha | 34 ha |
| 2019 | 19 ha | 3 ha | 22 ha |
| 2020 | 35 ha | 5 ha | 40 ha |
| 2021 | 27 ha | 6 ha | 33 ha |
| 2022 | 29 ha | 4 ha | 33 ha |
| 2023 | 21 ha | under 1 ha | 21 ha |
| 2024 | 18 ha | 1 ha | 19 ha |
| 2025 | 31 ha | under 1 ha | 31 ha |
Forest loss is slowing down: about 27 hectares a year in 2021–2025, down from 57 hectares a year in 2016–2020. The worst year was 2016, when about 107 hectares of forest were lost.
Also: shifting farming, unknown causes.
Causes for 2025 are estimates, based on what caused forest loss in the same places up to 2024.
Source: Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA, Global Forest Change (GFC-2025-v1.13); causes: WRI/Google DeepMind drivers of forest loss; both CC BY 4.0, summed by Airleaf for each area. How it's measured
53.8% of Saint Lucia was forested as of 2024, against a 30% benchmark. That already clears the benchmark — the city reports above show where cover is still thin locally. Source: World Bank (FAO).
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Frequently asked
Airleaf measures 1 city in Saint Lucia. Castries reads AQI 28 right now.
About 1,110 ha from 2001 to 2025, 2% of the forest it had in 2000, from the University of Maryland's yearly satellite maps of forest loss. 869 ha of it was cleared for good, for farms, mines or towns.
Each city's reading is the US EPA air quality index, from ground monitoring stations where one has reported recently nearby, and from the CAMS atmospheric model elsewhere; each city's report says which. Tree cover is measured over the same 2 km radius in every city, so the cities compare like for like.
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