352 Ball et al.: Hazard of Emerald Ash Borer to Community Forests ception. The two largest communities in South Dakota, Sioux Falls and Rapid City, were excluded from consideration as a result of the resources required to conduct inventories in these larger communities. The survey included 34 of the 308 com- munities within the state. These communities have a popula- tion of 57,286 of the 501,665 South Dakota residents that live in incorporated municipalities (Table 1). The data collected on each street tree had a dual purpose of providing communities with the information for the manage- ment of their street trees as well as providing the state with the information to determine the impact of lethal stressors to the state. Street trees were considered all trees within the road easement for each city and sidewalks usually delineated this boundary, but in communities lacking sidewalks, the appro- priate distance, which varied among the communities, was measured from the center of the roads. The information col- lected on each street tree included location along the street, species, total tree height, tree diameter at 1.37 m (4.5 ft), canopy condition class, and presence of power lines among other attributes. Available planting spaces were also recorded with the assumed spacing of approximately 13.7 m (45.2 ft) and excluded sites that could not be planted as a result of pavement for either driveways or parking. Risk assessment Table 1. Surveyed South Dakota communities by municipal league population divisions and location in the state. East River Class Class 1 More than 5000 residents Pierre (13,876) Class 2 Between 500 and 5000 Clark (1285) West River (east or west of Missouri River) Brookings (18,504) Spearfish (8606) Canton (3110) DeSmet (1164) Class 3 Mobridge (3574) Wall (818) Selby (736) Tripp (711) Andover (97) Fewer than 500 residents Bushnell (75) Dolton (41) Eden (97) Geddes (252) Harrold (209) Hitchcock (108) Lake Nordon (432) Montrose (480) Naples (25) Nunda (47) Pickstown (168) Ree Height (85) Roscoe (324) Stockholm (105) Yale (118) ©2007 International Society of Arboriculture Eagle Butte (619) Murdo (612) Presho (588) White River (598) Batesland (88) Kennebec (286) Bison (373) Wasta (75) RESULTS An error-free inventory, although a goal, is difficult to attain. This inventory project relied heavily on the efforts of com- munity volunteers and Master Gardeners. They were respon- sible for the much of the data collection and entry. A random survey of streets within each of the communities revealed a range of errors. The most common was an incorrect address; ≈3.7% of the addresses in the random survey were incorrect, most often as a result of a corner house having its address on the other street or guessing wrong at an address for a house that did not have a street number identified on the mailbox or curb. These were insignificant errors for this study but can become a problem if a community inventory is used for scheduling tree work. Tree identification was also a source of errors. The random survey found ≈1.2% of the species were misidentified, usually confused with another species of the same genus. The error rate for the other attributes was much lower, most likely as a result of either the simple nature of data, power line present or absent for example, or the wide range of choices. Tree height, for example, was collected as only three choices, less than 9.1 m (30 ft), between 9.1 (30 ft) and 13.7 m (45.2 ft), and greater than 13.7 m (45.2 ft). The majority of the errors discovered in the random survey were made during data collection, not entry. was not part of the inventory, or Plant Health Care recom- mendations, because volunteers were used for the inventory effort and did not have the training to properly evaluate tree health or assess defects. The inventory system used for many of the communities was TreeKeeper Online designed and managed by the Davey Resource Group, a division of The Davey Tree Expert Company (Kent, OH). Many of the smaller communities, class 3, do not have their inventories in this system because the communities do not have enough street trees to justify the computer storage. Several of the class 2 also do not have the data available online because the communities have not expressed interest in using the information. Master Gardeners, community members, South Dakota State University Cooperative Extension educators, Division of Resource Conservation and Forestry service foresters, and university students collected the inventory data. Inventory training was made part of the annual Master Gardener certi- fication seminars and an orientation session was conducted with all volunteers at the beginning of each community in- ventory. Whenever possible, a service forester was assigned to a crew or would float among several crews to answer questions and check that accurate data were being collected. The data were initially collected on paper spreadsheets from which volunteers would later enter the data into an online database for South Dakota maintained by the Davey Resource Group. Data were later collected on iPAQs (Compaq, Hous- ton, TX) to allow for more efficient data entry and to reduce the chances of error in data transfer.
September 2007
| Title Name |
Pages |
Delete |
Url |
| Empty |
Search Text Block
Page #page_num
#doc_title
Hi $receivername|$receiveremail,
$sendername|$senderemail wrote these comments for you:
$message
$sendername|$senderemail would like for you to view the following digital edition.
Please click on the page below to be directed to the digital edition:
$thumbnail$pagenum
$link$pagenum
Your form submission was a success. You will be contacted by Washington Gas with follow-up information regarding your request.
This process might take longer please wait
