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Urban Forestry Planning
There are many benefits, costs, and challenges to planning an urban forest. Urban forests provide both ecosystem services and disservices that are considered prior to planning. Urban forests provide services such as improved air quality, noise reduction, temperature mitigation, and stormwater mitigation when they are placed in the right spot. Urban forest planning is used to maximize the benefits that trees provide by thoughtfully placing them in the best locations. Challenges that are faced during planning include managing the disservices from trees and valuating their services, the loss/replacement cost of green infrastructure, and the cost of remediating gray infrastructure interference. A major loss of green infrastructure could alter the sense of place, community identity, and social cohesion of a municipality.

When planning an urban forest there are several practices that can be used. Many municipalities put plans for an urban forest into an official document such as a master plan. While not every city can implement an urban forest plan, it is possible to implement plans for specific areas, such as parks, that would help increase the canopy cover of a municipality.

During the creation of the urban forest management plan, criteria and goals are usually outlined in the plan early in the planning process. Determining criteria is done by assessing the current state of the urban forest and then incorporating criteria for performance goals into the management plan. Assessment is the first step in planning and provides necessary information on the forest extent, age distribution, tree health, and species diversity. Once the assessment is completed, the next step becomes deciding what criteria—or indicators—to incorporate into the plan so that there are set performance goals. Incorporating indicators into the management plan makes it easier to track the progress of the urban forest and whether goals are being met. Criteria/indicators typically focus on a category of urban forest management and usually include subjects such as:

●     The urban forest vegetation and its characteristics such as canopy cover, age distributions, and species diversity.

●     Having a community focus that involves industry cooperation, and community and stakeholder involvement.

●     The planning of the urban forest and whether it is successful in the management and funding of the urban forest.

The incorporation of indicators into management plans are a strong aid in the implementation and revision of management plans and help reach the goals within the plan.

A key part of a master plan is to map spaces where trees will be planted. In the paper A methodology to select the best locations for new urban forests using multicriteria analysis, three different steps are outlined for determining planting areas. The first stage is an excluding stage, which uses a set of criteria to exclude poor locations and indicate potential locations for planting. Second is a suitability stage, which evaluates the potential locations to determine a more selective group of suitable spots. Finally, the feasibility stage is a final test to determine if the suitable locations are the most feasible planting areas with minimal site use conflicts.

The management of urban forest planning falls into many hands. During the writing process of a plan, the input from professionals and citizens are taken into consideration. When designing the plan and determining planting locations, landscape architects, arborists, and urban foresters provide valuable input and knowledge as to what trees to plant and where, in order to ensure an urban forest that is long lived and healthy. The public works department and planning commissioners also play a role in the process to make sure that no trees are planted where they may interfere with emergency practices, underground or above ground utilities, or safety of the public in any way. Planning for an urban forest involves input from a variety of people and the consideration of how trees affect the community they grow in.