Abstract
Trees in urban settings are becoming increasingly important as mediators to emerging challenges that transect social, environmental, and economic factors. Trees provide shade; absorb and store atmospheric carbon and other pollutants; reduce local temperature fluctuations; provide essential inner-city fauna habitat; assist in reducing over-land stormwater flow; provide amenity; and provide many more social, environmental, and economic benefits. To secure these benefits, tree canopy cover targets are commonly employed by land managers; however, such targets are rarely quantified against the characteristics and limitations of individual urban centers. Through the generation and interrogation of qualitative and quantitative data, this case study of Perth, Western Australia presents a new conceptual tool that integrates eleven factors found to influence the capacity and opportunity for a city to support urban tree canopy cover. This tool is designed to capture and causally weigh urban tree canopy considerations based on individual city characteristics, collective values, and identifiable constraints. The output of the tool provides an “optimum” tree canopy cover result (as a percentage of the urban fabric) to better inform canopy cover targets and recommendations for urban tree strategic planning and management. This tool is valuable for urban land managers, city planners, urban designers, and communities in effective planning, management, valuation, and investment regarding urban trees as a sub-set of urban green infrastructure.
Highlights
Industrial and residential development associated with the densification and growth of cities frequently requires clearing of remnant, restored, and exotic vegetation [1]
Current intervention methods and techniques are broad ranging, which vary in efficacy and success
Green infrastructure (GI) has demonstrated a place in response approaches; it may be considered underutilized as an asset stratum
Summary
Industrial and residential development associated with the densification and growth of cities frequently requires clearing of remnant, restored, and exotic vegetation [1]. Permeable surfaces are often converted to impermeable surfaces This conversion takes the form of roads, roofs, paving, and paths that reduce the opportunity for water to naturally percolate through the ground, thereby creating a higher flood propensity [2,3,4,5,6,7]. These surfaces can reflect and embed solar heat, exacerbating local temperature increases and the urban heat island effect [2,3,4,5,6,7]
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