24 Keller and Konijnendijk: A Comparative Analysis of Municipal Urban Tree Inventories Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2012. 38(1): 24–30 Short Communication: A Comparative Analysis of Municipal Urban Tree Inventories of Selected Major Cities in North America and Europe Julie Kjeldsen-Kragh Keller and Cecil C. Konijnendijk Abstract. Eeffective management of the urban forest calls for municipalities to have a tree inventory of their urban resource. The approach to ur- ban forestry is rather different in Europe and North America, both in terms of background and culture. This contribution discusses similarities and differences in tree inventory practices, based on a pilot study of three major cities in North America (Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and Boston, Massachusetts and New York City, New York, U.S.) and three major cities in Northern Europe (Oslo, Norway; and Aarhus and Copenhagen, Den- mark). The pilot study consisted of semi-structured expert interviews in each city, and an analysis of their tree inventories in terms of their level of detail, how they were undertaken, and how they have been used. Each of the cities, with exception of Oslo, had inventoried all of their street trees. Volunteers were only used in Boston and New York City. None of the cities had developed a management plan based on their tree in- ventory. The inventory had only been completely incorporated into the work order system in New York City and Toronto. This explorative study shows that more research is needed to investigate what subsequently happens to tree inventories in municipalities after they have been per- formed. Moreover, more work is needed to identify whether inventories are being utilized to their full advantage in terms of producing manage- ment plans. Some key themes for further research are described. The set up of this pilot study could serve as a format for comprehensive research. Key Words. Tree Vitality Assessment; Urban Forest Management; Urban Forest Resource Assessment; Urban Forestry; Volunteers. The urban forest can be described as encompassing all of the woody and associated vegetation in a city, including street trees, residential trees, park trees, and woodland and green- belt vegetation (Miller 1997; Sudha and Ravindranath 2000). In order to manage an urban forest it is vital to know and un- derstand the resource. It is the structure of the urban for- est that provides the basis for its functions (McPherson et al. 1997), and subsequently its value as a resource. It has been stressed that inventories are an important component in the management of urban forests (Smiley and Baker 1988; Miller 1997; Duntemann and Gasperini 2006; Jim 2008), and an ur- ban tree inventory would therefore be the first step in plan- ning and managing the urban forest for prioritized functions and values (Miller 1997; Cumming et al. 2008; Jim 2008). The concept and cultural background (Vollbrecht 1988) of urban forestry differs between North America and Europe, and urban forestry seems to be more institutionalized in North America (Konijnendijk et al. 2006). Therefore the approach to tree inventories may also differ between the two continents. The current literature on urban tree inventories often focuses on inventory results, in terms of environmental impact, tree health, and monetary benefits (McPherson et al. 1997; Gartner et al. 2002), and the species and composition (Jim 2008) of the urban forest. Other studies focus on how to perform the inventory, for example, with the use of geospatial methods (Ward and Johnson 2007), the ©2012 International Society of Arboriculture use of Urban Forest Effects Model (UFORE), currently i-TREE Eco (McPherson et al. 1997), or the STRATUM inventory, cur- rently i-Tree Streets (Millward and Sabir 2011; Soares et al. 2011). A review of existing literature reveals a wide variety of reasons for performing a tree inventory. This ranges from traf- fic safety; a renewal of the urban forest (Petersen 2003); an increased number of tree failures (Duntemann and Gasperini 2006); assisting in the planning, identification and prioritiza- tion of arboricultural work (Smiley and Baker 1988; Petersen 2003; Jim 2008), evaluating the costs involved in managing the urban forest (Banks et al. 1999); and predicting arboricultural work required in the future (Banks et al. 1999; Brack 2006). One relevant concern regarding inventories is the focus on public trees (Miller 1997; Banks et al. 1999; Brack 2006; Nowak 2008), and most inventories conducted by municipalities contain only street trees (Ward and Johnson 2007). These inventories will not be as comprehensive as an inventory that includes the entire urban forest (Nowak 2008), especially since the distribution and composition of private trees (Stewart 2009) and public parks (Welch 1994) is likely to be different than of populations of street trees. The use of volunteers can be an important component of tree inventorying by ameliorating the limited resources available to municipal authorities. Studies have shown numerous benefits from this, such as increased survival of newly planted trees, sense of social identity among residents (Ames 1980), and empower-
January 2012
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