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Bloomington Urban Forestry Research Group
Indiana University Bloomington

Indiana Municipal Urban Forestry Programs- Environmental Sustainability Review

Indiana Municipal Urban Forest Programs project - How are they addressing program sustainability?

BUFRG researchers (Fischer, Moxley, Freeman-Day, DeVoe, Hummel) developed a methodology to scan the websites of all Indiana cities with “active” municipal urban forestry programs using a three-factor approach to determine municipalities that may have an active urban forestry program. Evidence of active urban forestry programs includes a) current Tree City USA status and/or an b) IDNR CUF grant to complete a street tree/canopy cover inventory/create a city urban forest plan and/or c) have an arborist/urban forester on staff.  The process resulted in a database of 75 cities deemed to have an active urban forestry program We then scanned each city’s website to collect data for each program and municipality.

Findings to date: Many UF programs and program activities do not have a strong presence on city websites, and clearly not lead by an urban forester or arborist (only approximately 20 have a ‘trained’ leader).  Second, most programs do not appear to have recent inventories, urban forestry plans, or specific goals related to UF sustainability that are easily accessible in a public platform (municipal website). Additionally, very few programs have documented concern for changing environmental conditions or included in their efforts adaptation to climate change effects.  

The cities which are best prepared for environmental change plan for and exhibit one or more of the following:

  • Resistance to changing as the environment changes
  • Resilience to withstand changes with the environment and return to an earlier state
  • Transition to a new state of equilibrium in the event of indefinite environmental changes

In our analysis of urban forest plans for Indiana cities, we are looking for examples where these traits are addressed either implicitly or explicitly.

Freeman-Day S, Fischer BC, Devoe CB, Moxley DJ. 2019.  Active Indiana municipal urban forestry programs: How are they addressing sustainability/environmental change? Indiana Academy of Science 134th Proceedings, pp 88-89. Abstract available here.