The Future of Trees – Anna Gilchrist
Added on Fri Sep 25 12:16:00 BST 2020
Duration: 0:11:58
Anna Gilchrist - Lecturer in Environmental Planning, School of Environment, Education and Development
Deforesting the Urban Jungle? A case-study of the University of Manchester campus - The decline of the urban treescape due to intensifying development and densification pressures is a growing concern for urban citizens. Calculating the scale and associated impacts of urban tree removal is challenging however, because felling often occurs incrementally and with little or no warning. Notable publicity has highlighted the extent of public concern about the removal of trees, but urban deforestation events that achieve notoriety, may not accurately represent the scale of environmental harm. This research analyses aerial photography over a 22 year time period (1995-2017) to measure the reduction in tree canopy area on the University of Manchester campus. An assessment tool was then used to measure the loss of specific ecosystem services associated with tree removal during a period of extensive redevelopment and densification associated with a £1 billion campus redesign undertaken between 2013 and 2017. Results show that the total tree canopy area on the University of Manchester campus has declined by 44% since 1995. Between 1995 and 2009, incremental development of the campus led to greater losses in tree canopy area when compared with 2009-2017, despite this later time period including the phase of intensive campus densification and significant negative publicity about tree removal. This suggests that incremental densification can result in substantial reductions in tree canopy area despite being relatively indiscernible and generating little public complaint. The short period of campus redesign has however, also seen a significant reduction in canopy area and loss of ecosystem services, including reduced pollution removal, carbon storage and sequestration and avoided run-off. Future analysis should aim to analyse the extent of recent tree planting on campus, although this is unlikely to have increased canopy area or ecosystem service provision much, due to species selection and limited land availability.
Trees are an integral part of many landscapes in forests, woodlands, parks, streets and cities but are facing immense challenges from climate change, pests and diseases. This event hoped to stimulate conversations between research communities at The University of Manchester working on research related to forestry, woodland, urban and other treescapes to inform and support future collaborative working.
This event was hosted by Manchester Environmental Research Institute on the 23 September 2020
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