A Comprehensive Framework for Understanding Urban Forests as Social-Ecological Systems

Public attitudes about urban forest ecosystem services management: A case study in Oregon cities

Urban forest is a very important part of urban ecosystems and provides significant ecosystem services. It benefits urban communities environmentally, aesthetically, recreationally and economically. This article reviews the development status, development patterns and influencing factors of urban forest in China. There are four typical development patterns of urban forest in China: the forest city, garden city, ecological economics and forest greenbelt. Social, climatic, economic and other factors influence urban forest development in China. Social factors include government behaviour, laws and regulations, science and technology, education and culture, public awareness and participation, ecological planning and management. Climatic factors include rainfall, temperature and sunlight. Economic factors include urban economic level and funding for urban forest. In future, government, NGOs and the private sector should be considered more in the planning and management of urban forest. The social, climatic and economic factors should be taken into account when improving urban forest management. Research on urban forest from the academic and the management viewpoint should be strengthened. This can improve the development and management of urban forest in China and in other developing countries.

Abstract. Mosyaftiani A, Wahyu A, Kaswanto, Wiyoga H, Syasita N, Septa AF, Djauhari D. 2022. Monitoring and analyzing tree diversity using i-Tree eco to strengthen urban forest management. Biodiversitas 23: 4033-4039. Inadequate data on vegetation growth makes it difficult for managers to determine the additional measures necessary for effective urban forest management. The management of urban forests in Jakarta also raises this issue. Collaborative research with multiple stakeholders was conducted in five Jakarta urban forests to assess the diversity and structure of the vegetation as a basis for long-term monitoring and management. Using 49 plots, we carried out a field inventory to gather information on tree number, diameter at breast height, tree height, and crown size. The i-Tree Eco programme was used to examine the data and information gathered. The widely used i-Tree Eco analysis was conducted to make viable evidence-based evaluation feasible and to help stakeholders with data processing. The results showed that the five urban forests had a moderate level of diversity, with an index value ranging from 2.1 to 3.0. The five most common tree species—Swietenia macrophylla, Terminalia sp., Delonix regia, Ceiba pentandra, and Aleurites moluccanus—dominate urban forests, whereas three of them are exotic and most native species have substantially lower values. Increasing tree diversity by enriching native species is recommended to be a top priority for urban forest management in Jakarta. Additionally, this research shows that adopting advanced and user-friendly tools to regularly monitor and analyze vegetation helps stakeholders achieve better urban forest management.

Urban forests are an instrument of urban ecosystems, their existence is very important in the midst of declining environmental quality in urban areas, besides that urban forests also have various environmental service functions such as being able to absorb CO2 content, as an oxygen supply, then urban forests also have economic value. The policy on urban forest management is important so that its sustainability is maintained. Therefore, this study aims to analyze urban forest policies in forest management. This research was conducted in Serang City. This research approach uses the ANP (Analysis Network Process) approach, involving respondents from the Government (Regional Government Development Agency and Environmental services), forestry academics, forest researchers, KLHK employees in the forestry sector, practitioners engaged in forestry and environmental non-governmental organizations. The results of this study that from the three levels analyzed are factors, actors, and alternatives. The results from the level factor (policy support, quality improvement, evaluation and monitoring) show that policy support is the most priority thing. Meanwhile, from the level of actors (Government, Community, Private, government and private, NGOs) shows that the most influential actor in urban forest management is a combination of government and private sector. Then at the alternative level (evaluation of regulations, selection of tree species, expansion of urban forests, incentives, and sanctions) shows that the expansion of urban forests is the most important thing to implement.

Urban and peri-urban forests are important habitats for maintaining biodiversity in cities. In this paper, we report a method for using hoverflies as biodiversity indicators in urban forest habitats. As a case study, forest habitats in three peri-urban and urban forests were assessed and compared to rural forests in Slovenia. Rožnik (Ljubljana) was chosen as the urban forest site, Mestni log (Ljubljana) and Brdo (Kranj) were chosen as the peri-urban sites, and eight sites were chosen in rural forests in different ecoregions in Slovenia. Forest hoverfly species richness and the species composition of different biological traits were compared between the peri-urban forests, urban forest and rural forest sites. In addition, species richness was assessed for changes in response to weather conditions between years. The number of species with the investigated traits in the urban and peri-urban forests was within the range of the number of species observed in the rural forests. The number of saproxylic species was higher in the urban forest but lower in the peri-urban forests compared to the rural forests. The proportions of species with different feeding modes and different development times were similar between the peri-urban, urban and rural forests. The proportions of species with development times of less than 2 months or more than 1 year and of predatory species were similar in the urban and peri-urban forests but higher in the rural forests. The species composition of the other biological traits differed between the peri-urban, urban and rural forests. Species richness and abundance displayed large differences in phenological patterns between 2012 and 2013; these differences are related to differences in the minimum temperature for these years. The results are discussed in relation to forest management in urban forests, the usefulness of hoverflies as a biodiversity indicator and possible extrapolation to other species groups.

Numerous threats to urban forests are assessed for the conterminous United States, including projected changes in urban tree cover, air temperatures, precipitation, aridity, sea level rise, wildfires, and flooding, as well as threats from hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms, and insects and diseases. All potential threats were integrated into a cumulative threat index to illustrate which areas of the United States will likely face the greatest overall threat to their urban forests. Urban forests with the greatest cumulative threat per unit area are in the eastern United States, particularly in some coastal counties. Urban forests that have the greatest cumulative threat proportional to the percent of the county that is urbanized are in the highly urbanized areas along the DC–Boston corridor and in other metro areas (e.g., Atlanta, Georgia; Indianapolis, Indiana; Columbus, Ohio; Houston, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina). By understanding local urban forest threats, management plans and policies can be enacted to help mitigate the impacts of and adapt to future threats to sustain healthy urban forests and associated benefits. Study Implications: By understanding the magnitude and variation in potential urban forest threats, forest managers can be better prepared to potentially minimize and adapt to future urban forest damage. Threat type and intensities of threats vary by location. Understanding the distribution and intensity of urban forest threats can be used to help direct policies and forest management plans to sustain long-term urban forest health. A tool to assess urban forest threats by county is available in the supplemental materials.

Urban forested natural areas are valuable ecological and social resources, but long-term sustainability of these habitats is challenged by environmental and social factors associated with urban ecosystems. Advances in city-scale assessments of urban forests have increased the resolution of forest community types and conditions, allowing for improved understanding of ecological function, such as natural regeneration, in these urban habitats. By applying metrics of tree regeneration that are commonly used for the management of rural forests, urban ecologists can test the potential for traditional forest management strategies within our cities. In this study, we compare urban and rural oak-hickory forest composition and structure and the capacity for natural regeneration in the New York metropolitan area. Specifically, we use two metrics of advance regeneration that describe the abundance of seedlings and saplings at different size classes to test whether this management for natural regeneration is a viable option. We found differences in recruitment dynamics between urban and rural forests that have implications for the sustainability of these forests and new management strategies. First, after controlling for forest community type, species composition in urban and rural sites was significantly different across multiple strata and within the seed bank. Species-specific capacity for natural regeneration was different in urban and rural sites, signaling the possibility of divergent successional trajectories. Second, while differences in species composition exist, both urban and rural sites were dominated by native species across all forest strata except for urban seed banks. Third, despite finding significantly lower average annual seedling abundance in urban (1.9 seedlings/m2 ) compared to rural (7.1 seedlings/m2 ) sites, we observed greater density of saplings in urban forests, and no significant difference in stocking index between sites. These findings suggest that early-establishment barriers to recruitment are greater in urban forest sites. However, once established, seedling transition into advance regeneration stages may not be different between site types, and advance regeneration may, in some cases, be more viable in urban forested natural areas. These results highlight functional differences between urban and rural forest recruitment dynamics that may impact on the future community composition of oak-hickory forests in the two landscape settings.

Decisions about urban forests are critical to urban liveability and resilience. This study aimed to evaluate the range of positions held by urban forest managers from local governments in the state of Victoria, Australia, regarding the management and governance challenges that affect their decision-making. This study was based on a Q-method approach, a procedure that allows researchers to evaluate the range of positions that exist about a topic in a structured manner based on the experiences of a wide group of people. We created statements on a wide range of urban forest management and governance challenges and asked urban forest managers to rate their level of agreement with these statements via an online survey. Managers generally agreed about the challenges posed by urban development and climate change for implementing local government policies on urban forest protection and expansion. However, there were divergent views about how effective solutions based on increasing operational capacities, such as increasing budgets and personnel, could address these challenges. For some managers, it was more effective to improve critical governance challenges, such as inter-departmental and inter-municipal coordination, community engagement, and addressing the culture of risk aversion in local governments. Urban forest regional strategies aimed at coordinating management and governance issues across cities should build on existing consensus on development and environmental threats and address critical management and governance issues not solely related to local government operational capacity.

Drone remote sensing in urban forest management: A case study

Urban forest and the question of planning-sustainability inadequacy

City leaders are setting ambitious plans to achieve critical urban sustainability goals such as reducing urban heat, mitigating flooding during storms, and conserving biodiversity, and increasingly rely on urban forests as a key nature‐based solution to such challenges. Current paradigms of urban forest management typically prioritize goals like increasing tree canopy cover that are often viewed as proxies for increased ecosystem service provision, in a general sense. However, urban foresters, the professionals with responsibility to manage urban forests, are increasingly faced with the complex challenge of managing for new goals related to ecosystem services, biodiversity, or people–nature relationships, as cities increasingly set goals centered on such outcomes, without robust guidelines to follow. We ask: How can urban foresters align their street tree management actions with specific urban sustainability goals? We conducted a structured expert elicitation of urban forest professionals in three cities: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, United States; and Washington, DC, United States. A socio‐ecological lens was used to examine urban foresters as agents of change in urban ecosystems. Participants assessed the impacts of 40 direct management actions on five goals: (1) canopy cover increase and tree risk reduction, (2) urban heat reduction, (3) people–nature relationships, (4) wildlife habitat, and (5) stormwater interception and infiltration. While certain actions (e.g., in the mature tree maintenance phase) were selected as needed to advance every goal, experts identified numerous actions which aligned with one or several goals, but not all. Preplanting actions, specifically site selection and species selection, presented the greatest opportunities to advance specific goals, suggesting that aligning this phase with city sustainability goals is critical. Participants were highly confident in being able to advance all goals through street tree management, but were more confident in being able to advance the goals of increasing canopy cover while reducing tree risk and of mitigating urban heat, possibly because these goals more closely align with traditional canopy cover goal setting. This research underscores the necessity of considering site‐level ecosystem management actions to advance strategic sustainability goals, while also revealing the complexity of the role and responsibilities of professionals who manage urban ecosystems.

Preferences of urban dwellers on urban forest recreational services in South Korea

Urban forest governance comprises the formal and informal rules, institutions, and processes that influence collective decision-making in urban forest management. As such, it shapes key processes and outcomes that are implicated in urban environmental justice, including whose priorities and values are reflected in urban forest management and how and where urban trees are distributed. However, despite its central role in determining urban forest processes and outcomes, equity within urban forest governance remains obscure. To address this, we conducted a literature review to identify how equitable urban forest governance is conceptualized and evaluated in the literature, and what gaps in knowledge remain. Our review found that while distributional justice was the prevalent framing in the literature, recommendations for collaborative governance approaches reflect a shift towards procedural and recognitional justice. Most studies, however, used a top-down approach to evaluate policy outcomes and few incorporated community experiences or involvement within governance processes, leaving the roles and experiences of community actors underexplored. Our findings suggest that the existing literature has thus far failed to explicitly interrogate procedural and recognitional justice within urban forest governance. This highlights a critical need to more clearly incorporate procedural and recognitional justice themes and approaches into future urban forest governance theory, research, and practice. Based on our review, we offer a guiding analytical framework that identifies key considerations for equitable urban forest governance.

In Padova, the municipal department of green infrastructure monitors the urban forest through a continuously updated database that stores information about locations, species, dimensions, health conditions, and management of more than 47,000 trees. The aim of the research presented in this chapter was to support urban forest planning and management by integrating the existing database with information about ecosystem services, disservices, and the ecological requirements of trees. We combined a quantitative analysis through i-Tree Eco with a qualitative assessment based on literature review and expert knowledge, and filled in 17 new fields for each tree in the database. Then, through a GIS, we investigated the spatial distribution of the analysed features across the city, thus revealing inequalities among different areas and mismatches with citizens’ preferences and needs. The enhanced database could potentially become a powerful tool, not only to identify and prioritize management interventions, but also, in a longer term perspective, to identify strategic goals with a view to coordinating local actions, thus ensuring a sustainable development of the urban forest and an equitable provision of ecosystem services to present and future generations.

Urban forests provide benefits to society often referred to as ecosystem services: they improve human health, environmental quality, and local economies by increasing property values and aesthetics in communities. They help cities control storm water, reduce air pollution and energy costs, and offset carbon dioxide emissions. But urban forests also have “ecosystem disservices.” An accurate assessment of an urban forest’s costs can assist decision makers to better understand the role the forest plays in improving the well-being of the community. Identifying how funding is used can also help communities minimize costs and increase benefits. This revised 4-page fact sheet will review some of the types of costs associated with urban forests and present typical financial costs associated with urban forest management in the city of Gainesville, Florida. Written by Francisco Escobedo and Jennifer Seitz, and published by the UF Department of School of Forest Resources and Conservation, October 2012. FOR217/FR279: The Costs of Managing an Urban Forest (ufl.edu)