Environmental Science Department, Barnard College, New York, NY, United States of America.
Department of Civil Engineering & Engineering Mechanics, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Jul 11;19(7):e0304447. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304447. eCollection 2024.
Urban street trees offer cities critical environmental and social benefits. In New York City (NYC), a decadal census of every street tree is conducted to help understand and manage the urban forest. However, it has previously been impossible to analyze growth of an individual tree because of uncertainty in tree location. This study overcomes this limitation using a three-step alignment process for identifying individual trees with ZIP Codes, address, and species instead of map coordinates. We estimated individual growth rates for 126,362 street trees (59 species and 19% of 2015 trees) using the difference between diameter at breast height (DBH) from the 2005 and 2015 tree censuses. The tree identification method was verified by locating and measuring the DBH of select trees and measuring a set of trees annually for over 5 years. We examined determinants of tree growth rates and explored their spatial distribution. In our newly created NYC tree growth database, fourteen species have over 1000 unique trees. The three most abundant tree species vary in growth rates; London Planetree (n = 32,056, 0.163 in/yr) grew the slowest compared to Honeylocust (n = 15,967, 0.356 in/yr), and Callery Pear (n = 15,902, 0.334 in/yr). Overall, Silver Linden was the fastest growing species (n = 1,149, 0.510 in/yr). Ordinary least squares regression that incorporated biological factors including size and the local urban form indicated that species was the major factor controlling growth rates, and tree stewardship had only a small effect. Furthermore, tree measurements by volunteer community scientists were as accurate as those made by NYC staff. Examining city wide patterns of tree growth indicates that areas with a higher Social Vulnerability Index have higher than expected growth rates. Continued efforts in street tree planting should utilize known growth rates while incorporating community voices to better provide long-term ecosystem services across NYC.
城市街道树木为城市提供了至关重要的环境和社会效益。在纽约市（NYC），每十年对每棵街道树木进行一次普查，以帮助了解和管理城市森林。然而，由于树木位置的不确定性，以前不可能分析单个树木的生长情况。本研究通过使用邮政编码、地址和物种代替地图坐标对树木进行三步对齐的过程来克服这一限制。我们使用 2005 年和 2015 年树木普查之间的胸径（DBH）差异来估算 126362 棵街道树木（59 个物种和 2015 年树木的 19%）的个体增长率。通过定位和测量选定树木的 DBH 并每年测量一组树木超过 5 年来验证树木识别方法。我们研究了树木生长率的决定因素并探索了它们的空间分布。在我们新创建的纽约市树木生长数据库中，有 14 个物种有超过 1000 棵独特的树木。三种最丰富的树种的生长速度不同；伦敦悬铃木（n = 32056，每年 0.163 英寸）的生长速度最慢，而皂荚（n = 15967，每年 0.356 英寸）和西洋梨（n = 15902，每年 0.334 英寸）的生长速度较快。总的来说，银 Linden 是生长最快的物种（n = 1149，每年 0.510 英寸）。纳入包括大小和当地城市形态在内的生物因素的普通最小二乘回归表明，物种是控制生长速度的主要因素，而树木管理只有很小的影响。此外，社区科学家志愿者进行的树木测量与纽约市工作人员进行的测量一样准确。检查全市树木生长模式表明，社会脆弱性指数较高的地区的生长速度高于预期。在整个纽约市，继续努力种植街道树木应该利用已知的生长速度，同时纳入社区的声音，以更好地提供长期的生态系统服务。
