Abstract
Numerous tools have been developed to assist environmental decision-making, but there has been little examination of whether these tools achieve this aim, particularly for urban environments. This study aimed to evaluate the use of the i-Tree Eco tool in Great Britain, an assessment tool developed to support urban forest management. The study employed a documentary review, an online survey, and interviews in six case study areas to examine five impacts (instrumental, conceptual, capacity-building, enduring connectivity, and culture/attitudes towards knowledge exchange) and to identify which factors inhibited or supported achievement of impact. It revealed that the i-Tree Eco projects had helped to increase knowledge of urban forests and awareness of the benefits they provide. While there was often broad use of i-Tree Eco findings in various internal reports, external forums, and discussions of wider policies and plans, direct changes relating to improved urban forest management, increased funding or new tree policies were less frequent. The barriers we identified which limited impact included a lack of project champions, policy drivers and resources, problems with knowledge transfer and exchange, organisational and staff change, and negative views of trees. Overall, i-Tree Eco, similar to other environmental decision-making tools, can help to improve the management of urban trees when planned as one step in a longer process of engagement with stakeholders and development of new management plans and policies. In this first published impact evaluation of multiple i-Tree Eco projects, we identified eight lessons to enhance the impact of future i-Tree Eco projects, transferable to other environmental decision-making tools.
Highlights
National Ecosystem Assessments (NEAs) are one way to comply with these requirements and natural capital accounts, comprising regularly updated information about ecosystem services, are considered an important step to operationalise the results of NEAs (Schröter et al, 2016)
Results from the interviews suggested that findings from i-Tree Eco projects were used beyond the local level, to inform regional strategies and national policies, namely a district tree strategy, a regional tree health action plan, a government statement on trees and woodlands, and a reference in the UK National Ecosystem Assessment
We have identified eight lessons to enhance the impact of future iTree Eco projects or other assessment and valuation projects and tools: 1. Problem framing: have a clear aim and negotiate with potential users a shared vision regarding desired changes to management, policy, knowledge, attitudes, capacity and/or connectivity
Summary
Since the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005), assessments of ecosystems and the benefits, or ecosystem services, they provide to society and human well-being have been undertaken in many parts of the world at national, regional or local levels (Nikodinoska, Paletto, Pastorella, Granvik, & Franzese, 2018). These involve assessing the state of ecosystems (INBO, 2014; UNEP, 2011), the flow of services from them (Bagstad et al, 2014; Schröter et al, 2018), and placing a value on the benefits those services provide to humans (Costanza et al, 1997; Liv & Opdam, 2014). The generic factors influencing uptake of decision support tools are well understood (Díez & McIntosh, 2009), mechanisms have been weak to stimulate translation of the results into action (Schröter et al, 2016)
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