Urban forests : towards adaptation to global changes

蒙特利尔市(公园管理局、罗斯蒙特帕特里区、L行政区)、雅加托、卢梭-勒菲布雷、魁北克和索弗迪已确定四项主要研究目标，有助于实现使城市森林适应全球变化的总体目标：1)提高调查城市所有树木的能力；2)了解树木在城市环境中死亡的原因以及它们如何应对压力和暴雨控制措施；3)针对全球变化的威胁建立森林应对措施和起草适应战略；4)向关注的利益攸关方调动知识。为了实现这一雄心勃勃的目标，我们将拥有相关知识和能力的合作伙伴和合作者聚集在一起，从市政、私人和非营利性部门向利益相关者传递知识。大多数城市没有完整的树木清单，也缺乏关于私人树木的信息，尽管它们占城市树木总数的一半。我们将开发新的方法来提高加拿大城市调查城市森林的能力，这是迈向适应的重要一步。人们对城市树木的生存以及它们如何适应压力知之甚少，包括在绿色基础设施中。城市雨水管理已经变得非常重要，但在加拿大的城市，这不仅会排干水，还会排出除冰盐。到目前为止，关于城市树木对盐分和周期性洪水和干旱事件的耐受性的可靠数据仍然缺乏。我们设计了雄心勃勃的研究项目来回答这些基本问题。最后，尽管加拿大主要城市计划增加数千棵树，但很少有城市在预期效益方面有可衡量的目标，并有应对挑战的计划。如果没有更好的指导方针，这些高尚而昂贵的努力可能达不到预期的结果。该联盟项目将为这些挑战提供有效的答案，同时开发新的技术来抽样和跟踪变化，以及适应方面所需的知识。我们项目的一个主要优势是我们有能力通过我们的合作伙伴将这些知识传递给利益攸关方和决策者。

The City of Montreal (Service des Grands Parcs, Rosemont-La-Patite-Patrie borough, Service de l'eau), Jakarto, Rousseau-Lefebvre, QuébecVert and Soverdi have identified four main research objectives contributing to the overarching goal of adapting urban forests to global change: 1) increasing capacity to survey all urban trees; 2) understanding why trees die in the urban environment, and how they cope with stress and stormwater control measures; 3) modelling forest response and drafting adaptation strategies to global change threats; and 4) mobilize knowledge to concerned stakeholders. To achieve this ambitious goal, we bring together partners and collaborators with relevant know-how and capacity to transfer knowledge to stakeholders, from and for the municipal, private, and non-for-profit sectors.Most cities do not have a complete tree inventory, and lack information on private trees, despite that they represent half the total trees in a city. We will develop novel ways to increase the capacity of Canadian cities to survey their urban forests, an important step towards adaptation.Little is known of urban tree survival and how they adapt to stress, including in green infrastructures. Urban rainwater management has become very important, but in Canadian cities, these will not only drain water but also de-icing salts. To this day, sound data on urban trees' tolerance to salt and to cyclic flooding and drought events are lacking. We have designed ambitious research projects to answer these fundamental questions.Finally, while major Canadian cities have plans to add thousands of trees, few if any have measurable objectives in terms of desired benefits and a plan to face challenges. Without better guidelines, these noble and expensive efforts may fall short of desired outcomes. This Alliance project will provide working answers to these challenges, while developing novel techniques to sample and track change, as well as needed knowledge towards adaptation. A major strength of our project is our capacity to mobilize this knowledge through our partners to stakeholders and decision makers.