Urban and climate adaptive silviculture in the city: Managers and scientists work together to co-produce management and research strategies for urban oak forests in the Northeast U.S.

Background/Question/Methods

Urban forested natural areas, or urban woodlands, are an important component of the total urban forest and tree canopy. Although forests in cities are similar to rural forests in structure, composition, and function, these habitats are threatened by multiple, co-occurring, and often exacerbated urban and climate stressors. Furthermore, forests in cities often lack a formal silvicultural framework and there is a need for evidence-based forest management strategies. With this in mind, we convened a group of urban forest managers and scientists from across the northeastern U.S. to co-develop a long term replicated applied management study along a latitudinal gradient, stretching from Springfield, MA, to Baltimore, MD. The Northeast Urban Silviculture workshop met virtually during a series of five facilitated meetings in winter 2020/2021. The workshop leveraged an existing field-tested framework for adapting urban forests to climate change to 1) engage participants in the co-creation of urban- and climate change-adapted silvicultural strategies and 2) use an adaptive planning process to design specific management strategies and tactics for urban oak dominant forest stands to be replicated across the region as part of a long-term study.

Results/Conclusions

We created a replicable study design that will be applied across the region by working with managers to identify mature, closed-canopy oak-dominant forested areas in each city that can accommodate long-term study plots. Managers prioritized these healthy urban forests, or “good woods'', because of the ecosystem services they provide and access to high quality greenspace by residents. In addition these healthy forest stands are vulnerable to disturbance because natural regeneration of native tree species is limited, resulting in a dissimilarity between the mature canopy and seedling community compositions. Gaps in the forest caused by windthrow and tree mortality often become invaded by plants, suppressing tree establishment and canopy recovery. Here, we review the process and outcomes of the workshop and identify similarities and differences in management goals, forest vulnerability, and adaptive capacity across the region. We discuss the social and ecological challenges of managing urban oak forests relative to rural oak forests and identify examples of urban- and climate-adapted silviculture strategies co-produced by forest managers and scientists. Finally, we examine techniques generated during the workshop to accelerate canopy-gap restoration by mast trees along with a proactive approach which may make closed-canopy forest more resilient to disturbance and climate change.