Earth and Space News: Age and Canopy Area Cost Less and Tell More in Urban Tree Inventories

Summary: Age and canopy area give more accurate, economical urban tree inventories than do basal area, diameter, normal circumference and trunk area, and volume.

Pink trumpets (Tabebuia impetiginosus) number among the 145-tree sample studied for tree appraisal assessment variables, such as age and canopy area, in northern Argentina's province of Santiago del Estero; Tabebuia impetiginosus in Oberá, Misiones Province, northeastern Argentina, Sept. 1, 2014: Leandro Kibisz, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

An article in Arboriculture & Urban Forestry May 2017 accepts acoustic stress-absorbing, climate-regulating, pollutant-filtering, recreational, refrigerating roles beyond mainly ornamental functions of urban trees when assembling urban tree inventories for town planning.

Lucrecia Contato-Carol in Argentina and Esperanza Ayuga-Téllez, Concepción González-García, M. Ángeles Grande-Ortiz and Alvaro Sánchez-Medina in Spain broach the numerous tree-appraising formulas and standards brandished worldwide. One researcher in Santiago del Estero and four in Madrid classify tree-appraising assessment variables, unlike in criteria and outcome considerations, into economic, health and tree-size divisions. They define age, basal area, canopy area, diameter at breast height (dbh), normal circumference, normal trunk area and volume as common biometric (statistically analyzed) tree-size variables.

The article emphasizes age as the most important non-parametric (distribution-free) assessment method variable since inventory procedures evoking all physiological and environmental aspects never explain tree complexities.

The article Selection of Tree-Size Variables for Appraisal Methods for Urban Trees According to Their Collinearity favors Arboriculture & Urban Forestry article findings from March 2009. Studies of urban tree physiology by Pierre Dutilleul, Pierre Jutras and Shiv Prasher of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, group quantitative over abiotic and biotic variables.

The current study handles marmalade orange (Citrus x aurantium), pink trumpet (Tabebuia impetiginosus) and rosewood (Tipuana tipu) among the 145-tree sample in Santiago del Estero, Argentina. It ignores conifers, as farm and private garden trees, and institutes cluster analysis to isolate redundant variables and multiple regression models to identify the variability-injecting variables.

Linear and Spearman combinations juggle analyses of correlations between the sets of two calculated and four direct-measured variables to judge information comparability for urban tree inventories.

Combining circumference 1.3 meters (4.26 feet) above ground level and height along the tree axis, from trunk base to upper canopy end, knows the greatest correlation. Linear and Spearman coefficients lend the least correlation between canopy area and height when looking at age, basal area, canopy diameter, height and normal trunk circumference.

Parametric and mixed-method appraisals "maximize the benefits of trees and minimize the costs in achieving these benefits" by monetarizing value from one of five tree-size variables. The study by Dutilleul, Jutras and Prasher contrastingly notes urban managers nestling multiple tree-size variables as "the simplest model for addressing the complexity of urban trees."

The current study opts for "which variables can explain the most variability with no problems of collinearity, in order to reduce costs in urban tree inventories."

Results from city squares and streets in Santiago del Estero present collinearity in accurately, totally predictable correlations of calculated basal area and direct-measured, normal circumference variables.

Canopy area, which quickens urban shade, qualifies as the variable least correlated with age, most measurable with other analyses, with remote sensing techniques and without fieldwork. Their combination into redundancy-free data sets renders "the greatest possible amount of information" and the "greatest simplification for appraising trees with the lowest loss of variability." They suppress inventory expenses since data-collecting costs are "directly related to the amount of information obtained on each tree and the expertise of the data collector."

Appraisers tackle town planning concerns over accurate, economical, timely urban tree inventories by trading variables that travel together for age and canopy area that travel independently.

Rosewoods (Tipuana tipu) number among the 145-tree sample studied for tree appraisal assessment variables, such as age and canopy area, in northern Argentina's province of Santiago del Estero; Tipuana tipu trees, with ground carpeted with their fallen flowers, Plaza República de Chile, Palermo neighborhood (barrio), Buenos Aires, eastern Argentina: Roberto Fiadone, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to:
talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet;
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for superior on-campus and on-line resources.

Image credits:

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Earth and Space News

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Age and Canopy Area Cost Less and Tell More in Urban Tree Inventories

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