Branching out new routes to valuing urban treescapes

Lead Research Organisation: The Open University
Department Name: Faculty of Sci, Tech, Eng & Maths (STEM)

Abstract

A climate emergency has been declared by 74% of UK local authorities. As they respond to this via increased tree planting targets for carbon sequestration, it is imperative that they also realise the multiple public benefits - health and wellbeing, green infrastructure, social amenity, the green economy - that treescapes can provide. Local authorities need a vision of future societal needs and the forms of future treescapes that might meet them; we will deliver the evidence and decision making processes to realise such a vision.
Most studies on the biophysical and amenity aspects of urban treescapes neglect wider social and cultural values that cannot easily be quantified. Consequently, the symbolic, heritage, spiritual and social and cultural (S&C) values of treescapes are not meaningfully accounted for. This problem is becoming increasingly acute, as protests arise around individual trees (Sheffield street trees) or woods (proposed sale of the public forest estate), exacerbated by pressure from business and housing development. 'Branching Out' will evaluate the S&C values of urban trees across three cities, and develop new ways of mapping, predicting and communicating those values to support robust, evidence-based decision making and management.
The three selected focus cities purposefully have different planning histories, supporting subsequent widespread adoption of our novel approach. York (historical) and Cardiff (post-industrial) are county towns, while Milton Keynes is a post-1960s new town. Each city has particular, yet not uncommon, challenges relating to their treescapes, has declared a climate emergency, and expects trees to play a role in mitigation and adaptation. Our central tenet comprises three broad approaches: 1) co-production, using deliberative methods with citizens and stakeholders, to develop a holistic value framework; 2) storytelling, creating narrative accounts of meaning and value of the past, present and future; 3) mapping, to link biophysical features and S&C values. Our approach will map both values that are generalisable and those that are particular and highly situated.
Our mapping approaches encompass the past, present and future, using historical sources to map the impact of past values on current treescape form and function. We will use our established tree citizen science platform, Treezilla, to collect biophysical data from new Urban Tree Observatories. Remote sensing will characterise tree condition and canopy properties, and scale the biophysical data across the focal cities. This project will address local authorities' need for high-resolution mapping of tree characteristics, resulting in Europe's largest, most robust urban tree dataset, accompanied by descriptors of S&C value that can be used to recreate such datasets across other urban areas using freely available satellite data. The tools we co-create will provide local authorities with useable evidence for decision making to predict the impacts of developments or changes on S&C value, and enable them to calculate more accurately the impacts of changes on ecosystem services. Such multidimensional mapping can reveal inequalities in current and future provision of benefits as treescapes change through time, providing a better understanding of how and where those inequalities can be addressed.
A series of design workshops will experiment with ways of mapping S&C values in relation to the remote-sensed biophysical characteristics of our urban treescapes, producing techniques and tools for sensing and mapping values. Using these tools as provocations, we will speculate on possible futures for our urban treescapes, built around an appreciation and understanding of S&C values. Through these methods this project will embed S&C values in planning and decision-making for urban trees at local and national scales, thereby meeting society's and planning needs now and in the future.

Publications

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Peter Wood (2023) Branching Out: public involvement in street tree research in The Geographer

 
Description Quantifying Patterns In Urban Tree Canopy Cover And Identifying Causes Of Urban Tree Loss
Amount £19,996 (GBP)
Organisation Woodland Trust 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2022 
End 04/2023
 
Description Urban Tree Canopy Cover Pilot phase 1
Amount £15,000 (GBP)
Organisation Woodland Trust 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2023 
End 04/2023
 
Title Urban Tree Observatory Individual tree data 
Description Data from urban tree observatory sites in Milton Keynes, York and Cardiff: detailed individual tree data from up to 6 hectare plots in each city, available through the Treezilla platform. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact None as yet 
URL http://treezilla.org
 
Description Branching Out consortium 
Organisation Loughborough University
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Contributed expertise to the consortium on citizen science, tree data, tree ecosystem services, mapping and participatory methods.
Collaborator Contribution Loughborough University and the University of York and SEI have contributed expertise on participatory methods and approaches to valuing social and cultural values of trees.
Impact The main outcome at this stage was the successful grant application for the Future of UK Treescapes programme.
Start Year 2021
 
Description Branching Out consortium 
Organisation Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)
Department Stockholm Environment Institute,York
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Contributed expertise to the consortium on citizen science, tree data, tree ecosystem services, mapping and participatory methods.
Collaborator Contribution Loughborough University and the University of York and SEI have contributed expertise on participatory methods and approaches to valuing social and cultural values of trees.
Impact The main outcome at this stage was the successful grant application for the Future of UK Treescapes programme.
Start Year 2021
 
Description Branching Out consortium 
Organisation University of York
Department York Environmental Sustainability Institute
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Contributed expertise to the consortium on citizen science, tree data, tree ecosystem services, mapping and participatory methods.
Collaborator Contribution Loughborough University and the University of York and SEI have contributed expertise on participatory methods and approaches to valuing social and cultural values of trees.
Impact The main outcome at this stage was the successful grant application for the Future of UK Treescapes programme.
Start Year 2021
 
Description Cardiff Council: Collaboration on Urban Tree Observatories - Branching Out 
Organisation Cardiff Council
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution We established the urban tree observatory (UTO) programme with a survey methodology and identified survey sites.
Collaborator Contribution Supported UTO site selection, providing local knowledge on appropriate sites.
Impact UTO survey sites identified.
Start Year 2022
 
Description Forest Research: Collaboration on urban tree mapping and measurement - Branching Out 
Organisation Forest Research
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution The Open University leads the Treezilla citizen science project which this collaboration contributes to. We have helped in the selection of areas for detailed mapping, building collaborations with local authority partners and establishing methods for detailed mapping of chosen sites.
Collaborator Contribution Forest Research have led the mapping activities by coordinating with project partners and carrying out some work themselves.
Impact Detailed mapping of a number of urban tree observatory plots in focal cities.
Start Year 2021
 
Description Milton Keynes Council: Collaboration on Urban Tree Observatories - Branching Out 
Organisation Milton Keynes City Council
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution We established the urban tree observatory (UTO) programme with a survey methodology and identified survey sites.
Collaborator Contribution Provided local knowledge of suitable sites and coordinated with tree surveyor to collect field data.
Impact Initial survey data from a subset of the UTO sites.
Start Year 2022
 
Description Partnership with Milton Keynes Council 
Organisation Milton Keynes City Council
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution We have developed research ideas and proposals that would support the work of the council's Environment department in managing their trees.
Collaborator Contribution The council have provided input to the development of research ideas and letters of support for research proposals. The council have supplied tree data from their field surveys to populate the treezilla website. The council are carrying out field surveys of trees as part of the Urban Tree Observatory programme.
Impact MK Council letters of support for recent grant applications.
Start Year 2020
 
Description York City Council: Collaboration on Urban Tree Observatories - Branching Out 
Organisation City of York Council
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution We established the urban tree observatory (UTO) programme with a survey methodology and identified survey sites.
Collaborator Contribution Provision of local knowledge on potential UTO survey sites.
Impact Candidate UTO survey sites.
Start Year 2022
 
Title Cardiff Tree Stories dashboard 
Description A dashboard for exploring stories submitted by Cardiff citizens as part of a citizen panel for the Branching Out project. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact None as yet 
URL https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/6c9288c4177d4084b3ae83a971cbfa98
 
Description Arts-based methodologies for global challenges workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Attendance at this Conference on June 10, 2022. This workshop investigated teaching and research methodologies that can aid expressive and reflective engagement with contemporary global challenges exacerbated by the climate crisis. presentations explored culturally relevant, arts-based methods that have the potential to provide engagement with a range of global challenges, focusing on the climate crisis, such as environmental migration and racial justice, food security and health, sustainable development and conservation. Contributors shared different teaching and research engagement activities, as well as models based on participatory art, storytelling, digital approaches.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://fass.open.ac.uk/research/methodologies-for-global-challenges
 
Description Branching Out project citizen & end user panel workshops - Milton Keynes, Cardiff and York 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact The second series of Panel Workshops for the Branching Out project were targeted at a combined audience of both citizens and end users (practitioners) were held contributing to the co-production of a values framework working with citizens and key stakeholders. The workshops were held on York (13.09.23), Cardiff (19.09.23) and Milton Keynes (10.10.23)

Citizens from each of these focus cities as well as end users were invited to take part in these participatory in-person workshops focused on capturing people's perspectives, experiences of, and feelings about trees and greenspaces, to gather input about the environmental, social and cultural value of trees.

In these combined panel workshops, citizens developed stories of the future which contributing to the development of visions of future treescapes in dialogue with end users, other citizens and the project team. The workshop also facilitated work on sociocultural indicators and how they can be better integrated in management and planning. Finally, the workshop also explored creatively with stakeholders in terms of how the data collected by the Branching Out project can be used by stakeholders - in terms of the purpose and in what form.

Contact was made with over 60 participants (citizens and end users) from each city and up to 50 attended each workshop, achieving the target set. Before attending participants were asked to complete online surveys and following this participated in the 4 hour workshop which involved discussions and interactive activities between the attendees, presentations about the project and preliminary findings from the surveys. The workshops in each city were successful with high levels of participation and interaction from attendees with most expressing an interest in attending the next workshop in their resident city.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Branching Out project citizens panel workshops - Milton Keynes, Cardiff and York 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The first series of Citizen Panel Workshops for the Branching Out project were held in January 2023 contributing to the co-production aspect of the project involving working with citizens and stakeholders to develop a holistic value framework. Residents from each of the three focus cities of Milton Keynes (16.01.23), Cardiff (17.01.23) and York (30.01.23) were invited to take part in a participatory in-person workshops focused on capturing people's perspectives, experiences of, and feelings about trees and greenspaces, in order to help us understand more about the environmental, social and cultural value of trees. Contact was made with over 50 residents in each city and 30 - 35 participants attended each workshop, achieving the target set. Before attending participants were asked to complete an online survey questionnaire and following this participated in the 4 hour workshop which involved discussions and interactive activities between the attendees, along with the opportunity to learn about the project and preliminary findings from the survey through a short presentation from the research team. The workshops in each city were successful with high levels of participation and interaction from attendees with most expressing an interest in attending the next workshop in their resident city.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.valueoftrees.co.uk/blog-2/observing-one-of-our-citizen-panels-in-york
 
Description British Council STEM Education Hub Event - Citizen science and basic education: how to develop a project with schools' engagement in scientific research 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The British Council STEM Education Hub hosted an online seminar - Citizen science and basic education: how to develop a project with schools' engagement in scientific research? (https://www.stemeducationhub.co.uk/citizen-science-and-basic-education-how-to-develop-a-project-with-schools-engagement-in-scientific-research/) on August 11, 2021. The event had simultaneous interpretation available in both English and Portuguese.

The event focused on demonstrating practical approaches to develop schools' engagement in scientific research. Specialists from the UK and Brazil led roundtables to discuss and explore with participants the concept of citizen science and practical approaches to implement research/evidence-based pedagogies.
Ansine was invited to be a panellist and provided practice-based insights with examples of OU projects and platforms demonstrating UK collaboration between a university, schools and the public through citizen science. Presentation available here: https://www.stemeducationhub.co.uk/citizen-science-and-basic-education-how-to-develop-a-project-with-schools-engagement-in-scientific-research/. Citizen science project examples demonstrated included iSpot (www.iSpotnature.org), Treezilla (www.treezill.org) and X:Pollination (https://xpollination.org/).

Teachers attended showed interest in all examples asking questions with further folllowup queries after the event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.stemeducationhub.co.uk/citizen-science-and-basic-education-how-to-develop-a-project-with...
 
Description COP26 Green Zone event: Ancient knowledge and Modern Thinking: Climate Perspectives in Folk Art 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact The OU co-hosted a GreenZone event at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26),in Glasgow, Scotland on November 7, 2021 entitled Ancient Knowledge and Modern Thinking: Climate Perspectives in Folk Art (https://ukcop26.org/events/ancient-knowledge-and-modern-thinking-climate-perspectives-in-folk-art/ ). Janice Ansine was one of the speakers selected and explored connections between culture, citizens, and climate. This was a thought-provoking session that intersected the worlds of culture, science and technology.

Ansine highlighted a citizen science approach provides opportunities to explore, record, identify, collaborate, contribute, learn and personalise experiences noting examples of technological innovations that citizens can use to record and protect nature, such as Treezilla, and the Branching Out project. with Branching Out, citizen science is integrated in new ways of mapping, predicting, and communicating the social and cultural values of trees. This is combined with urban tree observatories, hyperspectral remote sensing and historic mapping to develop Europe's largest, most robust urban tree dataset, using Treezilla to map changes and inform evidence-based decisions around urban treescapes

iSpotnature.org and the DECIDE project, also featured and it was noted how iSpot experiences are being used to enhance biodiversity information enabling volunteers to record nature where it matters through the DECIDE project.

Over 100 attended in person and 1.6 thousand joined the event online, the recording is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76oloGAqtBc. These were also part of associated social media and other promotions: about the event i.e.: https://linktr.ee/iSpotnature_citizen.science.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76oloGAqtBc
 
Description Data presentation tools workshop and blog post 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact Branching Out project team members had a workshop in December 2023 to develop, test and evaluate data presentation tools. This included brainstorming ideas for updates to Treezilla, an existing citizen science platform, that would incorporate outcomes of the Branching Out project such as gathering and displaying data on the social and cultural value of urban trees. To share this process with the wider public and engage with external stakeholders involved in the project, Holly Woo and Andi Setiawan wrote a blog post outlining the ideas and outcomes of this workshop for the external-facing Branching Out website. This was published in January 2024 and shared on social media.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023,2024
URL https://www.valueoftrees.co.uk/blog/d07xmkzhza4ewt34kr39xsln2docbg
 
Description Future of UK Treescapes conference 2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Poster presentations of work in progress as part of Branching out at forum including policy makers and major woodland/forest NGOs.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Making the most of tree mapping workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A workshop looking at opportunities, challenges and approaches to developing standardised and unified data collection and mapping for urban trees.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.uktreescapes.org/events/future-treescapes-23/
 
Description Milton Keynes Parks Trust Love Nature Day 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Love Nature Day was a open day event hosted by the Milton Keynes Parks Trust on July 1, 2022 at Howe Park Wood, Milton Keynes by the Trust's Outdoor Learning Team and rangers. The OU citizen science team featured this and other related initiatives at an interactive stand engaging with members of the public and how they can get involved on a local level. The event featured exhibition stands hosted by local nature groups and organisations throughout the day celebrating the natural world. Activities were focused on building connections with the natural world by bringing the public up close to nature and a chance to find out more about how they can help wildlife at home.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.theparkstrust.com/events/love-nature-day
 
Description National Forum for Biological Recorders Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Attending the annual National Forum for Biological Recorders Conference online on May 5-6 2022. The theme of the conference was the legacies created by biological recording. From safeguarding historic specimen collections to dealing with personal photographs, the programme covered various aspects of usefully preserving biological recording outputs for present and future generations.The conference talks took place at Oxford University Museum of Natural History on 5th & 6th May, and were simultaneously live streamed for online attendees.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL http://nfbr.org.uk/?q=node/257
 
Description OU - Staff Go Green Network workshop: citizen science 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presentation to the University staff Go-Green Network Group on June 14, 2022 exploring the different citizen science projects, platforms and initiatives and how staff can get involved. Go Green is an OU-wide initiative to reduce the University's impact on the environment, empowering staff to take action on energy, waste, water and travel.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Presentation to Defra on contribution from Branching Out to England Tree Action Plan 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact We delivered a presentation on the Branching Out project, linking the project activities to the objectives of the England Tree Action Plan (ETAP). The presentation was delivered to the Defra leads for ETAP.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description UK - China Conference on the development of science literacy for all 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Featuring collaboration in science education between the UK and China, the aim of the UK-China Conference on the Development of Science Education for All was to enhance science literacy across the society through strengthened UK-China partnerships. The event was held on December 5, 2022 and was facilitated through a collaboration between by the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, and was co-organised by the Teaching and Research Division of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, Shanghai Open University and the Open University in the UK, with special support from the Association for Science Education and Royal Institution in the UK. Participants joined line in Shanghai and online with simultaneous interpretation services provided during the event.
Presentation Title: Citizen science at the Open University, UK: a holistic approach - connecting research, teaching, learning and engagement

Presentation: This presentation shared a snapshot of citizen science practice at The Open University, UK where connections are established that link science research, teaching, learning and engagement; creating a holistic approach.
This practice incorporates using innovative technology to make learning accessible which includes citizen science initiatives that engage while building skills; supporting teaching and learning about biodiversity; as well as contributing to biological recording and research . Examples with approaches achieving this type of impact demonstrated included:
• www.iSpotnature.org (iSpot) encourages recording wildlife observations while learning and building species identification skills. iSpot also contributes to research e.g. the Cos4Cloud and DECIDE projects;
• www.Treezilla.org (Treezilla) is an ambitious effort to catalogue the UK's trees while building understanding of their ecosystem service value. Treezilla also contributes to research e.g. the UK Future of Treescapes project Branching Out.
The presentation demonstrated how citizen science acts as a platform for scientific literacy: both iSpot and Treezilla contribute to formal (i.e. taught modules) and informal (free courses, see http://www.open.ac.uk/citizen-science-and-global-biodiversity) OU teaching. With learning as part of the design, educational technology- based tools and features are incorporated along with activities encouraging public participation and engagement. Altogether this holistic approach helps to facilitate teaching and research creating a unique learning journey.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://ukbusinessinchina.glueup.cn/event/uk-china-conference-on-the-development-of-science-literacy...