Press release

The impact of urban environment on tree growth

Urban green areas, and trees in particular, play a crucial role in limiting the negative impact related to environmental and climatic characteristics in the urban context. On the other hand, typically urban factors such as air quality, rising and persistent temperatures (heat island effect) and anthropogenic activities affect urban vegetation.

Giuseppe Colangelo, Research Assistant, PhD

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STSM: Survey on knowledge transfer and interaction between research community and stakeholders in Green Infrastructure and Urban Forestry

During October and November 2013, Francesca Ugolini from the Institute of Biometeorology-CNR in Italy went on a short term scientific mission to the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Her STSM aimed at surveying the knowledge transfer and the strong and weak points of collaboration between different groups of stakeholders in urban forestry and green infrastructure. During the STSM three on-line questionnaires were developed; they address to public administrations, researchers and professionals. While the survey covers EU countries responses have even been obtained from USA and Canada. So far, more than 350 responses have been obtained and we still invite all readers to contribute their respond by visiting this page: http://www.greeninurbs.com/investigation-of-scientific-knowledge-transfer-and-collaboration-between-stakeholders-in-green-infrastructure-and-urban-forestry/. In 2014 the full report with all results will be available at this webpage.

Contact: Francesca Ugolini, IBIMET-CNR, f.ugolini@ibimet.cnr.it

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Environment and urban forests, mobility, transport and infrastructure compromises for sustainability

During a Short Term Scientific Mission in October-November 2013, funded by the COST Action FP1204, Dr. Antons Patlins from the Riga Technical University visited the Department of Transport Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania. Dr. Antons Patlins has collected the information for providing researches in the field of "Environment and urban forests, mobility, transport and infrastructure - compromises for sustainability", based on literature, scientific publication and experience obtained by Kaunas University of Technology. Urban forest and green infrastructure challenges such as: air pollution, insects and diseases, wildfires, natural catastrophic events, invasive plants, additional development, climate change and other threats have been studied during the STSM, as well as urban forest and green infrastructure management issues

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Evaluation of landscape change ten years after the Alqueva dam construction

During June 2013, Pelagia Z. Koukioumi, MSc of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki went on a short term scientific mission to the University of Algarve (Faro). Under the supervision of Pr. Thomas Panagopoulos, Pelagia supported the collection of stakeholder opinions on the changes in the forest landscape (Montado) of the Alqueva area caused by the construction of the biggest dam in Europe in 2003. This work evaluates landscape change in a Green infrastructure perspective where both environmental and sociological perspectives were addressed. Based on the current situation, green infrastructure planning approach for the future is outlined.

Pelagia Koukioumi

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Associations between health and environment

The threats and opportunities from environment to human health are as complex as important issues to explore. During a Short Term Scientific Mission in October 2013, funded by the COST Action FP1204, Dr Matilda Annerstedt van den Bosch from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences visited the European Centre for Environment and Human Health (ECEHH) in Truro, UK. The aim was to meet the demand for multidisciplinary, international approaches in matters of health and environment associations. Even though the topics are addressed within national research communities the need for cross-national, conclusive results is fundamental for reaching evidence, which is applicable in policies related to Green Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services.  Several common research interests between our universities were discovered and many collaborative outcomes were achieved, such as publication plans, and project and funding plans regarding collaborative projects on health and environmental impact assessments.

Matilda Van Den Bosch

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Development of a GIS-based model for urban forest management

In a short term scientific mission to the University of Algarve, Portugal during August and September 2013, Ilze Jankovska from the Latvia University of Agriculture explored Portugies experience on ways to increase ecological services of natural forest in the light of recreational demands. Collaboration was initiated on development of a GIS-based model to predict successional trends in hemiboreal Scot’s pine forests of Riga city via regeneration in canopy gaps. The GIS model will potentially predict forest landscape dynamics, which will serve to improve forest management methods for promotion of ecological services in urban forest use for recreation.

Ilze Jankovska

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Harmonisation of urban tree inventories between Europe and USA

Urban tree inventories are one of the most important sources of information when working with the urban forest. As a part in making these inventories comparable on an international level collaboration between the US Forrest Service and European researchers have started by a short term scientific mission funded by the COST Action FP1204. During a visit from the 7th to the 22nd of September at Rutgers University, US Forest Service and New York City, Dr Johan Östberg from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences initiated collaboration on implementing his Ph.D. work on harmonisation of data collection for urban trees into the work conducted by the US Forest Service. This work will potentially enable direct comparison of urban tree inventory data between Europe and North America.

Johan Östberg, Researcher/PhD

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