scholarly journals Climate Adaptive Silviculture for the City: Practitioners and Researchers Co-create a Framework for Studying Urban Oak-Dominated Mixed Hardwood Forests

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max R. Piana ◽  
Richard A. Hallett ◽  
Michelle L. Johnson ◽  
Nancy F. Sonti ◽  
Leslie A. Brandt ◽  
...  

Urban forested natural areas are an important component of the forest and tree canopy in northeastern United States urban areas. Although similar to native forests in surrounding regions in structure, composition, and function, these natural areas are threatened by multiple, co-occurring biological and climate stressors that are exacerbated by the urban environment. Furthermore, forests in cities often lack application of formal silvicultural approaches reliant upon evidence-based applied ecological sciences. These include both urban- and climate-adapted silvicultural techniques to increase the resilience and sustainability of native forests in cities. With this in mind, we convened a group of urban forest practitioners and researchers from along a latitudinal gradient in the northeastern United States to participate in a workshop focused on co-developing long-term, replicated ecological studies that will underlie the basis for potential silvicultural applications to urban forests. In this article we review the process and outcomes of the workshop, including an assessment of forest vulnerability, and adaptive capacity across the region, as well as shared management goals and objectives. We discuss the social and ecological challenges of managing urban oak-dominated mixed hardwood forests relative to non-urban forests and identify potential examples of urban- and climate-adapted silviculture strategies created by practitioners and researchers. In doing so, we highlight the challenges and need for basic and long-term applied ecological research relevant to silvicultural applications in cities.

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (10) ◽  
pp. 2869-2881
Author(s):  
Janel Hanrahan ◽  
Alexandria Maynard ◽  
Sarah Y. Murphy ◽  
Colton Zercher ◽  
Allison Fitzpatrick

AbstractAs demand for renewable energy grows, so does the need for an improved understanding of renewable energy sources. Paradoxically, the climate change mitigation strategy of fossil fuel divestment is in itself subject to shifts in weather patterns resulting from climate change. This is particularly true with solar power, which depends on local cloud cover. However, because observed shortwave radiation data usually span a decade or less, persistent long-term trends may not be identified. A simple linear regression model is created here using diurnal temperature range (DTR) during 2002–15 as a predictor variable to estimate long-term shortwave radiation (SR) values in the northeastern United States. Using an extended DTR dataset, SR values are computed for 1956–2015. Statistically significant decreases in shortwave radiation are identified that are dominated by changes during the summer months. Because this coincides with the season of greatest insolation and the highest potential for energy production, financial implications may be large for the solar energy industry if such trends persist into the future.


2018 ◽  
Vol 633 ◽  
pp. 59-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Masiol ◽  
Stefania Squizzato ◽  
David C. Chalupa ◽  
Mark J. Utell ◽  
David Q. Rich ◽  
...  

Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 630
Author(s):  
Peter Sang-Hoon Lee ◽  
Jincheol Park

The urban heat island effect has posed negative impacts on urban areas with increased cooling energy demand followed by an altered thermal environment. While unusually high temperature in urban areas has been often attributed to complex urban settings, the function of urban forests has been considered as an effective heat mitigation strategy. To investigate the cooling effect of urban forests and their influence range, this study examined the spatiotemporal changes in land surface temperature (LST) of urban forests and surrounding areas by using Landsat imageries. LST, the size of the urban forest, its vegetation cover, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were investigated for 34 urban forests and their surrounding areas at a series of buffer areas in Seoul, South Korea. The mean LST of urban forests was lower than that of the overall city, and the threshold distance from urban forests for cooling effect was estimated to be roughly up to 300 m. The group of large-sized urban forests showed significantly lower mean LST than that of small-sized urban forests. The group of urban forests with higher NDVI showed lower mean LST than that of urban forests with lower mean NDVI in a consistent manner. A negative linear relationship was found between the LST and size of urban forest (r = −0.36 to −0.58), size of vegetation cover (r = −0.39 to −0.61), and NDVI (r = −0.42 to −0.93). Temporal changes in NDVI were examined separately on a specific site, Seoul Forest, that has experienced urban forest dynamics. LST of the site decreased as NDVI improved by a land-use change from a barren racetrack to a city park. It was considered that NDVI could be a reliable factor for estimating the cooling effect of urban forest compared to the size of the urban forest and/or vegetation cover.


2016 ◽  
Vol 124 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou ◽  
Joel D. Schwartz ◽  
Marc G. Weisskopf ◽  
Steven J. Melly ◽  
Yun Wang ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Daud Irundu ◽  
Mir A Beddu ◽  
Najmawati Najmawati

Global warming is one of the major environmental issues of this century. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are the main cause of global warming. Green open space (RTH) such as urban parks, urban forests and green lines play an important role in mitigating global warming and climate change in urban areas because it is able to reduce CO2 from the atmosphere. This study aims to determine the potential of biomass and carbon stored in the Green Open Green Space of Polewali, West Sulawesi. Data collection for stored biomass and carbon is carried out at three green space locations including; Urban forest and city park and green lane each made three plots measuring 20 m x 20 m, and three plots on the Green Line measuring 1200 m. Retrieval of data by measuring tree height and diameter, analysis to obtain the dry volume, biomass and carbon stored for each tree species contained in the Polewali green space. Biomass is obtained by the formula M = BJ x Vk x BEF, the stored carbon value is obtained from the product of biomass by 0.47. The magnitude of the relationship of volume with biomass and carbon uses a regression equation (Ŷ=a+bX). The results show there are types of Glodokan (Polyalthia longifolia), Johar (Senna siamea), Mahogany (Swetenia sp) and Trambesi (Samanea saman) which are spread in the Polewali open green space. Trambesi is a type that has dominant biomass and stored carbon of 381.95 (tons / ha) and 179.52 (ton/ha). Green lane is the type of green space that has the most stored carbon and is currently 440.94 (ton/ha) and 207.24 (ton/ha). The overall green space biomass is 571.83 (ton/ha) and stored carbon is 268.76 (ton/ha) found in urban forests, urban gardens and green belt. The relationship of volume with biomass and stored carbon shows a very strong relationship with the coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.96.  


2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Fahey ◽  
Margaret Bialecki ◽  
David Carter

Understanding the response of urban forests to extreme climatic events, such as drought, will be essential to predicting impacts of climate change on the urban tree canopy and related ecosystem services. This study evaluated variation in tree growth and drought resistance (growth during drought) and resilience (growth in period following drought) across four land-use categories (built, transportation, park, and semi-natural forest) and four species (Acer saccharum, Gymnocladus dioicus, Liriodendron tulipifera, and Pinus strobus) at The Morton Arboretum in suburban Lisle, Illinois, U.S. Tree growth and resistance to drought both varied as an interaction between landuse and species (F15, 100 = 5.25, p < 0.001; F15, 100 = 2.42, p = 0.005). Resilience of tree growth to extreme drought was generally high and did not vary across species and land-uses. In this study, individual tree species responses to drought varied across land-uses, illustrating the difficulty of predicting the reaction of urban forests to projected increases in the frequency of extreme climatic events. Tree growth response to drought varied even across the relatively narrow range of growing conditions studied here. Investigation of a broader range of sites, encompassing the full urban forest continuum, would likely demonstrate even greater variation in tree response to extreme climatic events.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keunmin Lee ◽  
Je-Woo Hong ◽  
Jeongwon Kim ◽  
Jinkyu Hong

Abstract. Cities represent a key space for our sustainable trajectory in a changing environment, and our society is steadily embracing urban green space for its role in mitigating heatwaves and anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This study reports two-year surface fluxes of energy and CO2 measured via the eddy covariance method in an artificially constructed urban forest to examine the impact of urban forests on air temperature and net CO2 exchange. The urban forest site shows typical seasonal patterns of forest canopies with the seasonal march of the East Asian summer monsoon. Our analysis indicates that the urban forest reduces both the warming trend and urban heat island intensity compared to the adjacent high-rise urban areas and that photosynthetic carbon uptake is large despite relatively small tree density and leaf area index. During the significant drought period in the second year, gross primary production and evapotranspiration decreased, but their reduction was not as significant as those in natural forest canopies. We speculate that forest management practices, such as artificial irrigation and fertilization, enhance vegetation activity. We also stipulate that ecosystem respiration in urban forests is more pronounced than typical natural forests in a similar climate zone. This can be attributed to the substantial amount of soil organic carbon available due to intensive historical soil use and soil transplantation during forest construction, as well as relatively warmer temperatures in urban heat domes. Our observational study also indicates the need for caution in soil management for less CO2 emissions in urban areas.


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