Scope

Urban trees are central to providing healthy, vibrant and attractive cities throughout the world. They provide a wide range of ecosystem services, from mitigating the effects of climate change to providing a sense of place. Diversity in our urban tree population can increase their overall resilience to drought, heatwaves, storms and the rise of pests and diseases. These challenges call for the selection of appropriate tree species and the design and implementation of novel urban tree management strategies to enhance diversity and resilience.

Diversity can take many forms. It can relate to the diversity of genus, family of species that make up the urban forest, but it can also relate to the diversity of tree locations: for example pavements, car parks, private gardens, biofilters, golf courses and of course remnant woodlands. Diversity may also relate to the wide range of perspectives and values that urban residents associate with trees in their city, and how they engage in the decision-making and management of those tree.

This bi-annual international conference, brings together leading researchers and practitioners to discuss aspects of urban tree diversity from around the world. The aim of the event is to assess the state-of-art of research and promote the development of good practice and innovative approaches to urban tree planning and management. The conference will be interdisciplinary, while also engaging urban tree professionals working for the public and private sector, as well as NGOs.

The conference’s perspective on urban tree diversity will include the following topics:

  1. Selection of urban trees.
  2. Diverse approaches to design, integrate and establish urban trees
  3. Different approaches to assessing urban tree populations.
  4. Ecosystem services provided by diverse urban trees
  5. Strategies and planning for urban tree diversity.
  6. Managing diverse threats: such as pest, diseases, climate change, invasiveness.
  7. Diverse social-ecological perspectives, values and engagement with urban trees.

The main organisers of the conference are The University of Melbourne (UniMelb), the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA), and the City of Melbourne (CoM).