Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 44(6): November 2018 two check boxes for each of several essential maintenance tasks: water, weed and clean, expose root flare, and mulch. One check box for each task thanks the resident for doing proper tree care, and the other reminds the resident of what actions to take. For example, with water, the Tree Checkers participant selected either “Thank you for adequately watering your newly planted tree” or “Water is crucial to your tree’s survival, espe- cially for the first year after planting,” followed by detailed watering directions. A notes section on the “report card” provided space for addi- tional handwritten encouragement. The engage- ment process was based on two assumptions from PHS staff that are supported in the schol- arly literature. First, social norms and neighbor pressure can effectively encourage landscape man- agement behaviors (Larson and Brumand 2014; Sisser et al. 2016). Second, proper maintenance is essential for urban tree survival and growth during post-planting establishment (Koeser et al. 2014; Roman et al. 2015; Vogt et al. 2015). In recent years, PHS Tree Tenders staff sought to enhance the Tree Checkers program to pro- duce more robust data to analyze and under- stand tree performance. Two specific areas for improvement were identified and are discussed in this paper: 1) adding a mobile data collection system as part of a larger effort to improve data management, and (2) ensuring that Tree Check- ers produces reliable tree performance metrics (survival and vigor), in terms of both sam- pling design and volunteer observation errors. These shifts reflect new priorities among staff to produce high-quality data. Indeed, these two areas—data management and data reliability— are intricately linked, as data quality is a multi- dimensional issue encompassing accuracy, accessibility, believability, completeness, and unbi- asedness (Pipino et al. 2002; Kosmala et al. 2016). Research Collaborations Recent changes to the Tree Checkers program occurred in the context of ongoing and prior re- search collaborations. PHS staff members were spurred to enhance Tree Checkers to leverage the close partnership between PHS and the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Ser- vice Philadelphia Field Station, which opened 257 in 2012 and is hosted by PHS. PHS staff also sought to emulate productive research in other PHS program areas. The PHS senior director of planning and sustainable communities, who su- pervises Tree Tenders staff, had seen examples of rigorous research on another PHS program, LandCare, which “cleans and greens” vacant lots. LandCare has been extensively studied by scientists from the Forest Service Philadel- phia Field Station and the University of Penn- sylvania, with findings that demonstrate the program’s impact on crime and human health (Branas et al. 2011; South et al. 2015; Branas et al. 2016; South et al. 2018). Such analyses were made possible by high-quality program records and advanced planning for research studies. In enhancing the Tree Checkers program, the objective of PHS tree team staff was to pro- duce reliable data for both internal program assessment and research collaborations through improved data quality and data management and in the Tree Tenders program. As stated in an evaluation of knowledge co-production in urban forestry, "relationships between individ- uals are at the heart of effective partnerships" (Campbell et al. 2016). Consequently, PHS staff began collaborating with a research ecologist at the Philadelphia Field Station (and lead author on this article) who specializes in urban tree mortality and monitoring (Roman et al. 2016), with recent research on citizen science data quality (Roman et al. 2017). The current set of Tree Checkers variables (Table 1) was based on this scientist's work toward a minimum data set for monitoring (Roman et al. 2013; Camp- bell et al. 2016; Roman et al. 2017). Studying tree mortality of PHS street trees was also the topic of that scientist's master's research at the University of Pennsylvania (Roman and Scat- ena 2011). There was therefore a history of per- sonal relationships to undergird the PHS-Forest Service partnership to enhance Tree Checkers. Across three previous monitoring studies of PHS trees led by graduate students (Roman and Scatena 2011; Jack-Scott 2012; Widney et al. 2016), there were divergent outcomes, with annual tree survival ranging from 87%–96% (Table 2). PHS staff found it difficult to make meaning of these outcomes given the different ©2018 International Society of Arboriculture
November 2018
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