Urban Forests

Urban trees and forests contribute to making cities socio-economically and environmentally more sustainable. This is a transdisciplinary field where the two platforms SLU Urban Futures and Future Forests meet and collaborate to identify knowledge gaps and new research questions.

Watch the recorded webinars from 2023 on SLU Play!

Urban forests are ecosystems that include rich dynamics between trees and people at different scales ranging from a single tree in a private backyard, a row of street trees, to an entire woodland or region. The Urban Forests collaboration at SLU is aiming to create new encounters between different disciplines and sectors and to stimulate new research and collaboration in the field.

Why are urban forests important? SLU Future Forests SLU Urban Futures

Future analysis of the management of urban forests

Torgny Lind from the Department of Forest Resource Management, SLU, talks about the collaboration project "Future analysis of the management of urban forests" in the municipality of Sundsvall, where the municipality in collaboration with SLU investigated different scenarios for the future management of the municipality’s forests. Swedish presentation, English subtitles are following soon.

Adaptive governance of urban green spaces across Latin America – Insights amid COVID-19

Dr. Martinez Cruz from the Department of Forest Economics at SLU in Umeå discusses how managers of Urban Green Spaces along Latin America have adapted (or not) to the challenges imposed by social distancing measures, and how adaptation reflects the type of governance in place.

Urban Forestry and Green Infrastructure – a historic perspective

Anders Lindhagen, the Director of First and Second Cycle Education at the Department of Forest Economics, gave us a historic perspective of the research done in Sweden 20-30 years ago on Urban Forestry and Urban Green Infrastructure and what we have learned and can learn from this.

(Un)taming urban forests, wildlife, and Indigenous peoples: Mumbai’s Aarey

This webinar, from the 10th of May 2022, unravels the role of rapid urbanization that has mushroomed around Aarey forests - an urban forest in India that is home to leopards and other wildlife biodiversity coexisting with indigenous people.

Trees outside woodlands and their contribution to carbon sequestration

At this webinar, on 27 April 2022, Cat Scott from the University of Leeds presented her research on assessing the distribution of trees outside woodlands, their canopy cover and their potential contribution to net-zero goals being set by cities, regions and countries around the world.

Urban forests for a welfare society: running and the forest ideal in Swedish recreational planning

On the 17th of March 2022, Mattias Qviström, professor in Landscape architecture at SLU presented urban forests from a welfare society perspective. This webinar discussed the role of urban forests for recreational planning in Sweden from the 1960s until today, focusing especially on the welfare planning in the 1970s.

Volunteered geographic information, urban forests, & environmental justice

On the 17th of November 2021, Alec Foster, Assistant Professor at Illinois State University, presented a new form of citizen science: Volunteered geographic information (VGI), heralded as a promising new data source for urban planning and policymaking.

Urban Forestry from a planning perspective

On the 20th of October 2021, we met Karin Fällman Lillqvist, Head of Sustainability at Skogssällskapet, and Marcus Hedblom, Professor in Landscape Management at SLU, to discuss urban forestry from a planning perspective.

What are urban forests?

Urban forests are in increasing focus these days as contributors to healthier, more resilient, and more attractive cities. But what do we mean with ‘urban forests’? On the 29th of September 2021, two research platforms at SLU invited Prof. dr. Cecil Konijnendijk, director at the Nature Based Solutions Institute, to start a webinar series about urban forests.

Published: 24 January 2024 - Page editor: hanna.weiber.post@slu.se

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