Right tree, right place, right reason: understanding species- specific benefits and disbenefits of urban trees

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

At present, there is a global focus on tree planting forclimate change mitigation and other environmentalbenefits, e.g. Defra's 25 Year Environment Plan to plant 1million urban trees. Urban trees provide criticalenvironmental, health and wellbeing benefits to the growingurban population. The urban forest is unique in itsheterogeneity, comprising ecologically and structurallydiverse combinations of individual trees in green andgreyspaces, gardens and woodlands. However, majorknowledge-gaps exist in i) tree species composition acrossgreen and greyspaces, ii) the contribution of different treesspecies to environmental and health and wellbeingbenefits/disbenefits, and iii) reciprocally how urbanpressures (including policy decisions) shape the urbanforest and its resulting benefits/disbenefits. Addressingthese knowledge-gaps is critical to ensuring a 'right tree,right place, right reason' approach to urban forestmanagement.ObjectivesObj1: Determine composition and structure of the urbanforest across green and greyspaces in a case-study city(Sheffield).Obj2: Understand environmental, health and wellbeingbenefits/disbenefits delivered across the urban forest at aspecies-specific scale.Obj3: Explore species-specific scenarios to maintain orenhance the urban forest.Objectives will be addressed using a combination of: fieldmeasurement, GIS, health population modelling and citizenscience methods to understand public interactions withtrees. It will benefit from data collected as part of the UrbanTree Observatory (established by Edmondson and Croftwith Sheffield City Council-SCC) and epidemiologicalmodelling approaches developed on the NERC IWUNproject. The proposed PhD will provide crucial informationto support urban forest management and inform the SCCWoodland Creation Strategy.The supervisors combine expertise in urban ecosystemservices (Edmondson - Biosciences), digital data and GISmapping (Brindley, Landscape), remote sensing (Croft -Biosciences), and public interaction with urban trees (Pillatt- Sheffield City Council). The student will have theopportunity to gain training in a range of techniques andapproaches applicable to a wide range of academic andnon-academic career paths. By studying the environmental,health and wellbeing benefits/disbenefits of the urban forestthis project will provide an important evidence base tosupport enhancement and maintenance of the urban forest.