Managing Urban Forests in Canada: Investigation on the Use of Urban Forest Criteria and Indicators
Sylvain Martel
Topical mentors: Meagan Hanna, Nicholas Ott
Abstract
Urban and community forests in population centres of any size, are essential to delivering services that result in healthier and more resilient communities. However, these forests are exposed to multiple environmental, social, and structural stressors associated with urban environment. Furthermore, our changing climate exacerbates these stressors, increasing the challenges for those tasked with planning and managing urban forests. Criteria and indicators for sustainable urban forest management are metrics that help measure the progress identify opportunities for improvement. However, it remains unclear which indicators and tools best guide decisions when it comes to managing the urban forest. Our study investigates which criteria and indicators are currently used and their perceived value in managing urban forests; and which indicators not presently used would better help guide decision making from the perspective of urban forest practitioners in Canada.
We asked urban forest practitioners across Canada what tools they used to guide their decisions in managing urban and community forests. Planning and management of trees in urban centres in Canada is predominantly a municipal responsibility, however other levels of governments and non-government organizations (NGOs) are also involved with urban forestry. Most of the responses indicates that urban centres maintain tree inventories on public land and update the urban forest canopy cover periodically
We found a gaps in the tracking of both the benefits and negative impacts associated with urban trees, even though tree inventories and canopy cover analysis could provide sufficient information to track this metric.
Keywords: Managing Urban Forests in Canada: Investigation on the Use of Urban Forest Criteria Indicators
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