Open Collections

Miao, Alice

University of British Columbia

Many Canadian cities have begun developing urban forestry strategies that provide strategic guidance for the preservation and revitalization of their urban tree populations and urban green spaces. However, while tree inventory programs are often identified as the cornerstone of such strategies, a standardized practical framework for tree inventory practices, specifically designed for urban forests, has been slow to emerge. This research: 1) examines how urban forest inventories are understood by British Columbia (BC) municipalities; 2) evaluates the status of, and identifies trends in, BC municipal urban forest inventory programs for the first time, and 3) identifies inventory elements and provides recommendations for a more standardized and enhanced municipal urban forest inventory program in BC. A total of 162 BC municipalities were invited to share information on their municipal urban forest inventory programs via an online questionnaire. The questionnaire response rate was 50%. Key findings included the discovery that urban forests and urban forest inventory programs were not well understood and managed in a consistent manner across BC municipalities, and that this trend is likely to continue in the absence of a concerted effort to reverse it. Increased municipal expenditures on parks, culture and recreation was positively correlated to the existence of an urban forest inventory system, among other contributing factors such as the presence of an urban forest strategy, the location of the municipality and municipal policies. Street trees were identified as the most common focus of BC municipal inventory activities, and inventory data were commonly used for both strategic planning and daily operations. Based on these findings, I proposed a list of recommendations for the development of an approach to urban forest inventory programs for BC municipalities that is sensitive to local circumstances.

Text

2024-04-04

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87689

Forestry

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/