Beyond the axe: Interdisciplinary approaches towards an urban silviculture

Abstract

Forests in cities, from remnant woodlands to designed natural areas, are common and abundant. Ecologically similar to rural forests, these landscapes lend themselves to the principles of traditional forest management, such as silviculture. But the application of silviculture to forests in cities, at least in the United States, has long been met with resistance: as far back as Olmsted’s Central Park experiments with ‘planting thick and thinning quick’, public sentiment has been protective of trees, even when forest health would have benefitted from such treatments. Urban silviculture is a conceptual framework and a renewed call for a systematic approach to managing forests in cities that addresses cities’ socioecological context through adapted practices that integrate other disciplines, including design. Using emerging science and case studies, we explore how silviculture and landscape architecture, two allied yet often-alienated disciplines, can engage to create socially responsive evidence-based approaches that enhance the design, management and resilience of forested landscapes in cities.

Keyword:

• forests in cities
• urban silviculture
• adaptive management
• landscape architecture
• ecological design
• urban afforestation

Acknowledgments

We thank the organizers of the Urban Forests, Forest Urbanisms, and Global Warming conference at KU Leuven, as well as Morgan Grove and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.

The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or US Government determination or policy.

The work of Max R. Piana and Richard A. Hallett was authored as part of their official duties as Employees of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 USC. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under US Law. Nicholas Pevzner hereby waives their right to assert copyright, but not their right to be named as co-author in the article.

Notes

1 Roxi Thoren, ‘Deep Roots: Foundations of Forestry in American Landscape Architecture’, Scenario Journal (Spring 2014), scenariojournal.com/article/deep-roots/.

2 Frederick L. Olmsted correspondence to Henry G. Stebbins, 1 February 1876, in: Charles E. Beveridge et al. (eds.), The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Vol. VII: Parks, Politics, and Patronage, 1874–1882 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 175–176.

3 Frederick L. Olmsted and Jonathan Baxter Harrison, Observations on the Treatment of Public Plantations, More Especially Relating to the Use of the Axe (Boston: T.R. Marvin & Son, 1889).

4 Charles Spague Sargent, ‘Mr. Vanderbilt’s Forest’, Garden and Forest 8 (21 February 1894), 71.

5 Max R. Piana, Clara C. Pregitzer and Richard A. Hallett, ‘Advancing Management of Urban Forested Natural Areas: Toward an Urban Silviculture?’, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 19/9 (2021), 526–535.

6 Cecil C. Konijnendijk et al., ‘Defining Urban Forestry: A Comparative Perspective of North America and Europe’, Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 4/3-4 (2006), 93–103.

7 Piana, Pregitzer and Hallett, ‘Advancing Management’, op. cit. (note 5).

8 Peter Harnik, Charlie McCabe and Alexandra Hiple, 2017 City Park Facts (San Francisco: The Trust For Public Land, 2017), tpl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CityParkFacts_2017.4_7_17.FIN_.LO_.pdf.

9 Teresa Mexia et al., ‘Ecosystem Services: Urban Parks under a Magnifying Glass’, Environmental Research 160 (2018), 469–478.

10 Clara C. Pregitzer et al., ‘Estimating Carbon Storage in Urban Forests of New York City’, Urban Ecosystems 25 (2022), 617–631.

11 Christopher A. Lepczyk et al., ‘Biodiversity in the City: Fundamental Questions for Understanding the Ecology of Urban Green Spaces for Biodiversity Conservation’, BioScience 67/9 (2017), 799–807.

12 D. S. Novem Auyeung et al., ‘Reading the Landscape: Citywide Social Assessment of New York City Parks and Natural Areas in 2013–2014’, Social Assessment White Paper No. 2 (New York: New York Department of Parks and Recreation, 2016), 1–69.

13 Alexander J. Felson, Emily E. Oldfield and Mark A. Bradford, ‘Involving Ecologists in Shaping Large-Scale Green Infrastructure Projects’, BioScience 63/11 (2013), 882–890.

14 The importance of long-term and sustained management of forests in cities is highlighted in recent urban ecology studies, for example: Brady L. Simmons et al., ‘Long-Term Outcomes of Forest Restoration in an Urban Park’, Restoration Ecology 24/1 (2016), 109–118; and Lea R. Johnson and Steven N. Handel, ‘Management Intensity Steers the Long-Term Fate of Ecological Restoration in Urban Woodlands’, Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 41 (2019), 85–92.

15 Mark S. Ashton and Matthew J. Kelty, The Practice of Silviculture: Applied Forest Ecology (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2018).

16 Piana, Pregitzer and Hallett, ‘Advancing Management’, op. cit. (note 5).

17 Ibid.

18 For a review of the multiple social and ecological factors that influence urban ecosystems, see: Steward T.A. Pickett et al., ‘Urban Ecological Systems: Scientific Foundations and a Decade of Progress’, Journal of Environmental Management 92/3 (2011), 331–362; and Lea R. Johnson et al., ‘Conceptualizing Social-Ecological Drivers of Change in Urban Forest Patches’, Urban Ecosystems 24 (2021), 633–648.

19 Chadwick Dearing Oliver and Bruce A. Larson, Forest Stand Dynamics (Formerly published by John Wiley & Sons of Hoboken, NJ, copyright now held by C. D. Oliver and B. A. Larson, 1996).

20 Emily E. Oldfield et al., ‘Growing the Urban Forest: Tree Performance in Response to Biotic and Abiotic Land Management’, Restoration Ecology 23/5 (2015), 707–718.

21 Elisabeth B. Ward et al., ‘Positive Long-Term Impacts of Restoration on Soils in an Experimental Urban Forest’, Ecological Applications 31/5 (2021), e02336.

22 Danica A. Doroski et al., ‘Factors Driving Natural Regeneration beneath a Planted Urban Forest’, Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 29 (2018), 238–247.

23 See: George R. Robinson and Steven N. Handel, ‘Forest Restoration on a Closed Landfill: Rapid Addition of New Species by Bird Dispersal’, Conservation Biology 7/2 (1993), 271–278; and George R. Robinson and Steven N. Handel, ‘Directing Spatial Patterns of Recruitment During an Experimental Urban Woodland Reclamation’, Ecological Applications 10/1 (2000), 174–188.

24 Max R. Piana et al., ‘Climate Adaptive Silviculture for the City: Practitioners and Researchers Co-create a Framework for Studying Urban Oak-Dominated Mixed Hardwood Forests’, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 9 (2021), 750495.

25 Jane Gamal-Eldin, Bartlett Experimental Forest, USDA Forest Service report (Radnor, PA: Communications, Northeast Research Station, 1998).

26 Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., ‘Brooklyn Bridge Park: Planting Process’ (2015).

27 See, for example, afforestation studies at Kissena Park, New York City, including: Emily E. Oldfield et al., ‘Positive Effects of Afforestation Efforts on the Health of Urban Soils’, Forest Ecology and Management 313 (2014), 266–273, and emerging research in upland oak stands, for example: Piana et al., ‘Climate Adaptive Silviculture for the City’, op. cit. (note 24).

28 Julia Czerniak, George Hargreaves and John Beardsley (eds.), Large Parks (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007).

29 Joan Iverson Nassauer, ‘Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames’, Landscape Journal 14/2 (1995), 161–170.

30 Anais Leger-Smith and Paul Smith, ‘Trans-scalar Design at Parc aux Angeliques, Bordeaux’, ’scape 16 (2019).

31 Ingo Kowarik and Andreas Langer, ‘Natur-Park Sudgelande: Linking Conservation and Recreation in an Abandoned Railyard in Berlin’, in: Ingo Kowarik and Stefan Korner (eds.), Wild Urban Woodlands: New Perspectives for Urban Forestry (Berlin and New York: Springer, 2005), 287–299.

32 Catherine Szanto, ‘Le Laboratoire de paysage d’Alnarp en Suede: une experience de “gestion creative”’, Projets de paysage. Revue scientifique sur la conception et l’aménagement de l’espace 16 (2017).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Max R. Piana

Max Piana is a research ecologist with the USDA Forest Service’s Northern Research Station in Amherst, MA, USA. His research aims to bridge the science, management and design of urban greenspaces, from streetscapes to natural areas. Before joining the Forest Service, Piana received a PhD in Ecology & Evolution from Rutgers University and a Master in Environmental Management from the Yale School for the Environment.

Nicholas Pevzner

Nicholas Pevzner is an assistant professor in the department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design. His research spans the utilization of urban ecological systems in design, design for renewable energy landscapes, and speculative designs for decarbonization. Prior to joining Penn, he received a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and worked at the landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates in New York.

Richard A. Hallett

Richard Hallett is a research ecologist with the USDA Forest Service’s Northern Research Station and studies urban ecology at the NYC Urban Field Station. His work focuses on urban and rural forest management and tree health. Before joining the Northern Research Station he worked on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska and for Mead Paper in the upper peninsula of Michigan. He received a PhD in Natural Resources from the University of New Hampshire.