Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/N017773/1
Tree Selection for Green Infrastructure
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor IC Dodd, Lancaster University, Lancaster Environment Centre
- Grant held at:
- Lancaster University, Lancaster Environment Centre
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Unknown
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Natural Resource Management
- Science Topics:
- Urban & Land Management
- Landscape Architecture
- Urban Design
- Environmental Physiology
- Abstract:
- Trees form a critical component of green infrastructure (GI) and provide a wide range of ecosystem services to urban dwellers. However, these valuable services are at risk of being compromised through limited species diversity, inappropriate species selection, impoverished growth environments, and high tree mortality rates in urban areas. Provision of many of these ecosystem services relies on healthy trees and their value often scales with tree size, necessitating tree development to maturity and continued health: trees must thrive, not simply survive. Despite the centrality of appropriate species selection to the successful delivery of GI schemes, there remains scant guidance for the many actors involved in their establishment. The outcome of this guidance deficit is that urban planners, landscape architects and local authority officers rely heavily on a narrow range of 'traditional' species. This constrains urban forest biodiversity, encourages a plant nursery sector that is only incentivised to supply a narrow range of species and diminishes the resilience of our urban forests to future threats. Providing tree species selection guidance, underpinned by science and available to all communities tasked with delivering GI projects, has the capacity to transform the long term security of associated ecosystem services. Identifying a range of species that are suitable for different GI scenarios will give those specifying plantings the confidence to try new species, broaden the expectation of diverse plant material from nurseries and act to increase the resilience of vital green infrastructure schemes. Therefore the primary objective of this project is to develop a decision support tool and guidance for built environment professionals to aid species selection of trees used in urban environments. To ensure that the final outcomes of the project meet the stakeholder requirements, an initial focus group will invite Trees in Design Action Group (TDAG) members to establish the needs of the sector and identify current practice. This will include current species recommendations for contrasting urban planting scenarios (e.g. paved sites, parks, green bridges, rain gardens and streets). TDAG members represent the widest possible range of stakeholders in this sector, including but not limited to urban planners, landscape architects, local authorities, educators and private companies. Further, as TDAG membership is free, there are no boundaries to engagement with this process. Once stakeholder needs have been confirmed (by April 2016), the academic project partners will strategically evaluate nominated plant material. This will be made available by two of the largest nurseries supplying material to the UK's urban forest (eg. Barcham Trees) as well as several botanical gardens (eg. Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew). Since physiological drought tolerance is a requirement of many urban sites, the leaf turgor loss point will be quantified in approximately 100 species, to supplement existing published ecological data such as shade and flood tolerance. Synthesis of the data collected and developing a draft tree selection guidance will be the task of a KE Fellow who will be seconded to TDAG (October 2016 to June 2017). Knowledge exchange will be further supported by a series of seminars across the UK to seek feedback on the findings (August to November 2017) and assess likely project recommendations. The final project outcome will be a written guidance document (and online audio-visual lectures) that will be freely available via the TDAG website to all TDAG members and any other interested parties. This document / website will be updated yearly to reflect the availability of new information, as part of the core aims of TDAG.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/N017773/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Innovation
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Innovation - GI
This grant award has a total value of £94,907
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DA - Investigators | DI - Staff | DA - Estate Costs | DI - T&S | DA - Other Directly Allocated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £9,718 | £28,806 | £3,831 | £31,555 | £14,023 | £6,356 | £619 |
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