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Urban forestry study will help Nelson plan for climate change

Urban forests include all trees on streets, yards, and parks

An intern in the City of Nelson's planning department will spend the summer studying Nelson's urban forest.

Mieke Boecker told council at its July 16 meeting that urban forests are more than just street trees.

"Urban forests comprise everything from boulevard trees to backyard trees to green spaces," she said.

Boecker is a masters student in resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University. Her internship is funded by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. 

Urban forest management can help cities manage the effects of climate change, she said, because trees affect a city's temperatures, water retention, storm water systems, and ecosystems.

Boecker said a single tree provides air purification, carbon storage, shade for people and buildings, rainfall interception, rainfall  dispersal, wildlife habitat, erosion control, and temperature regulation.

But the familiar tree species that surround us now might not be the ideal ones in a dryer and hotter future. This is one of the reasons many municipalities are developing urban forest strategies.

Boecker's summer task is to write a report on Nelson's urban forest that could lead to an official strategy in the future. She has created a public survey to guide her work, and she invites residents to give their opinions. The survey can be found at www.surveymonkey.ca/r/LH9FWW3 and will be open until Aug. 4.

She told council that increasingly, across the world, planners are using nature-based solutions to protect, conserve, and restore water, forest, and natural environments. She said managing urban forests for climate change is one aspect of nature-based solutions.

Examples of nature-based solutions are storm water management ponds (to control run-off from urban areas), rain gardens (to allow rainwater to soak into the ground), green roofs (to regulate rainwater, temperature and energy) and urban canopies (to control urban temperatures).

Traditional urban thinking, Boecker said, divides the world into the built and natural environments. The engineered infrastructure or "hard grey infrastructure," is seen as being counter to nature. 

The goal of nature-based solutions is to integrate the two.

"We can re-frame our relationship to nature, especially in very urbanized settings," Boecker said.

Most research on nature-based solutions is done in large urban environments, but her work is part of a collaboration between SFU and Selkirk College to look at smaller communities, which face a disproportionate burden because of lack of resources to upgrade infrastructure in preparation for climate change, and in repairing it after a major weather event or a drought.

The Columbia Basin Trust's Columbia Basin Climate Source states that the four main climate challenges facing cities in the Kootenays in the coming decades will be increased flooding, drought, wildfire and severe storms. 

Trees play a part, for better or worse, in all four. The kinds of trees we plant and keep, and their locations, can help mitigate the extreme effects and prepare for a warmer future.

Trees are a natural asset, Boecker said, and as such they can be controversial.

"Everyone from city staff, to private developers, to residents, to utility companies, all have a stake in the management of the urban forest."

Her report will include background information on the current Nelson forest, a preliminary analysis and assessment, and an outline of opportunities for future forest management in Nelson.

 



Bill Metcalfe

About the Author: Bill Metcalfe

I have lived in Nelson since 1994 and worked as a reporter at the Nelson Star since 2015.
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