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

At present, there is a global focus on tree planting for
climate change mitigation and other environmental
benefits, e.g. Defra's 25 Year Environment Plan to plant 1
million urban trees. Urban trees provide critical
environmental, health and wellbeing benefits to the growing
urban population. The urban forest is unique in its
heterogeneity, comprising ecologically and structurally
diverse combinations of individual trees in green and
greyspaces, gardens and woodlands. However, major
knowledge-gaps exist in i) tree species composition across
green and greyspaces, ii) the contribution of different trees
species to environmental and health and wellbeing
benefits/disbenefits, and iii) reciprocally how urban
pressures (including policy decisions) shape the urban
forest and its resulting benefits/disbenefits. Addressing
these knowledge-gaps is critical to ensuring a 'right tree,
right place, right reason' approach to urban forest
management.
Objectives
Obj1: Determine composition and structure of the urban
forest across green and greyspaces in a case-study city
(Sheffield).
Obj2: Understand environmental, health and wellbeing
benefits/disbenefits delivered across the urban forest at a
species-specific scale.
Obj3: Explore species-specific scenarios to maintain or
enhance the urban forest.
Objectives will be addressed using a combination of: field
measurement, GIS, health population modelling and citizen
science methods to understand public interactions with
trees. It will benefit from data collected as part of the Urban
Tree Observatory (established by Edmondson and Croft
with Sheffield City Council-SCC) and epidemiological
modelling approaches developed on the NERC IWUN
project. The proposed PhD will provide crucial information
to support urban forest management and inform the SCC
Woodland Creation Strategy.
The supervisors combine expertise in urban ecosystem
services (Edmondson - Biosciences), digital data and GIS
mapping (Brindley, Landscape), remote sensing (Croft -
Biosciences), and public interaction with urban trees (Pillatt
- Sheffield City Council). The student will have the
opportunity to gain training in a range of techniques and
approaches applicable to a wide range of academic and
non-academic career paths. By studying the environmental,
health and wellbeing benefits/disbenefits of the urban forest
this project will provide an important evidence base to
support enhancement and maintenance of the urban forest.