26 Keller and Konijnendijk: A Comparative Analysis of Municipal Urban Tree Inventories and New York City. In New York City, the department of parks and recreation wanted to highlight the important relationship between the urban forest and the quality of urban life, whilst Toronto’s UFORE study focused on communicating the values and services provided by the city’s urban forest. In Boston, the “growing awareness of importance of urban forestry management and [the] recognition that little was known about the extent and condition of [the] urban forest” (Urban Ecology Institute 2008), together with a need to back up statements regarding the urban forest canopy, was the major reason for conducting the inventory. Only New York City and Boston used volunteers in carrying out their inventories. In Boston, the inventory was performed by con- tractors and 300 volunteers; in New York City, it was performed by city staff, contractors, and approximately 1100 volunteers. All but two of the inventories focused solely on street trees and park trees that border closely to roads. Oslo inven- toried both street and park trees, although their inventory only covered 10%–20% of the city-owned trees. The UFORE study in Toronto inventoried street, park, and private trees. Both New York City and Toronto had been updating their street tree inventories on a regular basis. Their inventories are incorporat- ed into their work order system, so that when arboricultural work is performed, any change in a tree’s status is updated and recorded in the inventory, along with the work that has just been performed. The pilot study also revealed that after the inventories had been completed, none of the cities had taken their inventory to the next level and used it to produce a strategic management plan. DISCUSSION The main reasons for conducting inventories were found to be similar between major cities in North America and Scan- dinavia, in terms of centralizing and recording information, and strategic planning. However, the differences between the two continents were related to the overall reasons for perform- ing the inventories. In North America, there was a focus on the economic, environmental, and social benefits gained from the urban forest. In the Scandinavian cities, none of these ben- efits were mentioned or recognized in the inventory process. Another important difference between the cities studied relates to the roles of professionals and volunteers when performing tree inventories. The benefits of using volunteers include enhanced social cohesion, building an active citizenry, and strengthening democracy. Studies have shown that volunteers are more likely to be more engaged in the governance of their community (Roch- ester et al. 2010). In addition, the use of volunteers can create a network with a strong political voice, which can in turn be used in favor of the urban forest (Bloniarz and Ryan 1996). The De- partment of Parks and Recreation in New York City considered the benefits gained from using volunteers important, even though they realized that the inventory might have been more accurate if only professionals had been involved. To save time, the New York City volunteers had been trained to enter their own data, as also mentioned by Abd-Elrahman et al. (2010). However, the mu- nicipality of Oslo regarded the quality of the inventory as their highest priority, and the arborists who performed the inventory needed at least three years’ experience of arboricultural work, including experience with condition rating. The problem of va- lidity in volunteer-recorded results can be dealt with by using verification field crews and by cross-checking parts of the data (Abd-Elrahman et al. 2010). In addition, Bloniarz and Ryan (1996) showed that the use of volunteers provides data with valid- ity comparable to that of professionals (Bloniarz and Ryan 1996). One of the obstacles in performing an inventory is the high percentage of trees located on private land (hence the reason most inventories focus on public street trees). This was also apparent in the pilot study. None of the cities in question have management responsibilities over private trees, so it can be ar- gued that it makes economic sense for them to not be included. Updating inventories seems to be a common challenge, even though a continuous update is necessary to achieve the goals and aims commonly expressed as the reasons for performing an in- Table 2. Information collected in each tree inventory, by whom, and the outcomes. Toronto Boston Who performed inventory? Ground/Aerial Which trees were inventoried? Development of inventory Product of inventory Update Total number of parameters in inventory Some park trees were included if they were bordering a road. w City Contractor Volunteer Ground Aerial Park Street Private City Contractor Management plan Work order system X U X U Xy U X U U X U X X X-15, U-10 (20 total) 20 z Aerial only used to identify trees when residents have a request. Not used in the inventory. y Only the number of trees is being updated. Arboricultural work and conditions are not being updated. Note: U = UFORE data collected ©2012 International Society of Arboriculture X X X X 14 X U X X X X X X X Xy X X X X Xy X X X Xz Xy X X X X X New York City X Copenhagen X Aarhus X Oslo X X Xw 16 17 8
January 2012
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