Abstract
Abstract Urban trees generate numerous ecosystem services, and these are often closely associated with the species, age and size of trees as well as with their vitality. Generally, the focus of urban and regional planning is aimed at very large trees, because very large trees are considered to be key green structures in an urban green infrastructure. However, there is a significant knowledge gap related to the importance of young trees in cities, despite their value in urban green spaces, greenways, parks, gardens, urban forests, and as components of green roofs and green walls. This study is the result of field mapping young trees in the urban area of the famous European historical city of Prague. Field mapping revealed a total of 40 individual young trees, or young tree groups, with cultural value in the study area of Prague. The results of this empirical study indicate that young trees (not just very large and old trees) can be very important structures for the provision of cultural ecosystem services in cities, and that they can be viewed as living cultural symbols. This is a new aspect in the awareness of the environmental and social roles of urban trees. This case study from Prague suggests that (i) young trees in urban areas need more attention from researchers and (ii) should be incorporated into urban planning as an important component of urban green infrastructure.
Highlights
Numerous studies in urban environments have focused on very large trees (VLTs) because they are the main living components of green urban infrastructure (MOSER ET AL., 2017; PRETZSCH ET AL., 2017)
Timber production in European forest management is usually limited to trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) of 70-80 cm and over (PETRITAN ET AL., 2015), so VLTs are rare in European forested landscapes and they are usually concentrated in old-growth forests (WIRTH ET AL., 2009)
VLTs in cities provide In addition, traditional conservation efforts in many ecosystem services such as carbon storage, European countries are aimed at the establishment mitigation of heat island effects, pollutant filtering, of VLTs, not SYTs, as specially protected trees recreation, shade and cooling (GROTE ET AL., 2016; (KILIANOVA ET AL., 2017), and VLTs seem to HAASE ET AL., 2012; MOSER-REISCHL ET AL., 2018). be more important than SYTs
Summary
Numerous studies in urban environments have focused on very large trees (VLTs) because they are the main living components of green urban infrastructure (MOSER ET AL., 2017; PRETZSCH ET AL., 2017). VLTs are defined as old-growth trees with a size threshold. Timber production in European forest management is usually limited to trees with a DBH of 70-80 cm and over (PETRITAN ET AL., 2015), so VLTs are rare in European forested landscapes and they are usually concentrated in old-growth forests (WIRTH ET AL., 2009). In green areas of many cities, VLTs are not limited by size because in urban locations timber production is not important. Be more important than SYTs (which are not VLTs in cities are often integrated into urban protected). We believe that planning and form the basic structures of urban VLTs, and some SYTs in UGI are strongly parks (PACE ET AL., 2018) and urban forests
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