Urban Forestry: Ecosystem Services, Inventory Methodologies, and Valuation

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering all six lecture sources on urban forestry ecosystem services, air and water regulation, inventory methodologies, provisioning and cultural dimensions, and economic valuation methods.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA)

A 2005 United Nations assessment called for by Kofi Annan in 2000 that popularized the ecosystem services framework, categorizing benefits into provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services.

Provisioning Ecosystem Services

Tangible, physical products directly harvested or obtained from nature, including food, fresh water, timber, fiber, fuel, genetic resources, and medicinal resources.

Regulating Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem processes that moderate natural phenomena, such as air quality maintenance, climate moderation, carbon sequestration, disease control, and stormwater runoff mitigation.

Supporting Ecosystem Services

Fundamental ecological processes necessary for the production and delivery of all other ecosystem services, including nutrient cycling, soil formation, and photosynthesis.

Cultural Ecosystem Services

Nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, aesthetic experiences, and sense of place.

$$PM_{2.5}$$

Fine particulate matter measuring below $2.5\,\mu\text{m}$ in diameter that penetrates deeply into human airways, causing respiratory illness; removed by trees via sedimentation, impaction, and deposition.

Tropospheric Ozone ($O_3$)

A harmful secondary gaseous air pollutant and strong oxidant formed on calm, sunny days when $NO_x$, VOCs, and carbon monoxide react; causes human airway inflammation and is absorbed through leaf stomata.

Temperature Inversion

A meteorological condition where a layer of warm air traps cooler air near the ground, capping the atmosphere and preventing vertical dispersion of air pollutants.

Residential Rain Garden

A shallow depression planted with native vegetation over an engineered soil bed ($50\text{--}60\%$ sand, $20\text{--}30\%$ compost, and $20\text{--}30\%$ topsoil) designed to collect, filter, and infiltrate stormwater runoff.

Vegetated Swale

A broad, shallow, gently sloping earthen channel planted with dense vegetation to slow stormwater flow velocity, trap sediments, and enhance infiltration.

Forest Inventory (FAO Definition)

The systematic collection of data on forest resources within a given area, as defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Tree Inventory (ISA Definition)

A record of the location, characteristics, and assessment of individual trees within a well-defined group, as defined by the International Society of Arboriculture.

Cool Tree Model

An inventory-based GIS spatial analysis created by Finn Köpf to evaluate urban heat island mitigation using the formula $\text{ITC} \times \text{BEA} \times \text{BES} = \text{FTC}$, integrating tree canopy parameters, buffer intersections, and building proximities.

Final Tree Cooling ($\text{FTC}$)

The combined cooling score for an individual urban tree derived from multiplying Individual Tree Cooling ($\text{ITC}$), Buffer Emergence ($\text{BEA}$), and Building Energy Savings ($\text{BES}$).

Sky View Factor ($\text{SVF}$)

A metric describing the proportion of the visible sky unobstructed by tree canopy or buildings from a specific point, utilized as a key predictor variable in microclimate and cooling models.

Satoyama

A traditional, centuries-old socio-ecological landscape in Japan where arable flatlands and surrounding foothill forests integrate through sustainable human management, resource cycling, and stewardship.

Binchotan

A traditional high-carbon Japanese white charcoal produced in satoyama woodlands that exemplifies how provisioning fuel products are tied to cultural heritage, skilled craft, and ecological stewardship.

The Mushroom at the End of the World

A book written by anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing that uses the ecology and global commodity trade of matsutake (songyi) mushrooms to examine collaborative human-ecological survival within capitalist ruins.

Red Oaks of Main Mall (Quercus rubra)

Iconic boulevard trees planted along UBC's Main Mall during the 1920s to provide shaded pedestrian promenades and ceremonial dignity, currently undergoing a gradual planned replacement as they reach senescence.

Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo)

A notable specimen tree located near Orchard Commons at UBC that was preserved following protests during campus construction, though it subsequently suffered decline from construction-related site disturbance.

Rhododendron Wood

A $4.5\text{--}\text{hectare}$ closed-canopy pocket woodland on the UBC campus that transitioned into an even-aged monoculture of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) after crown closure eliminated the light required by its original understory shrubs.

Attention Restoration Theory (ART)

A psychological theory suggesting that immersive exposure to natural environments restores prefrontal cortex-mediated executive attentional capacities that become fatigued by modern technological distractions.

Small Public Urban Green Spaces (SPUGS)

Compact, urban pocket green spaces investigated by Peschardt et al. in Copenhagen, categorized into functional archetypes such as multi-characteristic neighborhood plazas and café-centric historic squares.

Affordances (Lerstrup)

The meaningful action and play possibilities that an outdoor environment offers to children, determined by physical distance to hazards, vegetative structure, materials to manipulate, and levels of supervisory allowance.

Experience Values (Randrup et al.)

An eight-dimension typology for mapping experiential and recreational forest characteristics: Rich in species, Prospect, Wild, Cultural-historic, Refuge, Serene, Festive, and Space.

What Makes a Great Place? Framework (PPS)

A place assessment tool developed by the Project for Public Spaces evaluating sites across four key attributes: Sociability, Uses & Activities, Access & Linkages, and Comfort & Image.

Place vs. Space (Yi-Fu Tuan)

A core human geography concept summarized by Yi-Fu Tuan's phrase 'Place is security, space is freedom,' describing how open, abstract space becomes an emotionally grounded place through human experience and value.

TEEB Valuation Framework

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity tiered approach to environmental valuation, structured around three sequential steps: 1) Recognizing value, 2) Demonstrating value, and 3) Capturing value.

Structure-Function-Value Framework

The conceptual progression in ecosystem service valuation where physical biophysical structure (e.g., leaf area, stem diameter) enables ecological function (e.g., transpiration, rainfall interception), which in turn generates human socioeconomic value.

Hedonic Pricing Method

An economic valuation technique expressed as $P_i = P(S_i, N_i, Q_i)$ that calculates the implicit financial value of environmental qualities ($Q_i$, such as proximity to urban forests) from market sales prices ($P_i$) after controlling for property structural traits ($S_i$) and neighborhood traits ($N_i$).

Total Economic Value (TEV)

A comprehensive framework categorizing ecosystem values into Use Values (direct consumptive, direct non-consumptive, indirect, and option values) and Non-Use Values (bequest and existence values).

CTLA Planning Value

An asset appraisal standard formulated by the Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers that uses species, trunk diameter ($\text{DBH}$), condition, and location to quantify the capital asset value of standing trees prior to infrastructure design.

Avoidance Value vs. Compensation Value

Two distinct metrics in infrastructure planning (e.g., BC Hydro pilot): avoidance value reflects the visible capital asset value used to redirect utility alignments away from mature trees, whereas compensation value is the financial settlement paid when tree removal is unavoidable.

i-Tree Suite

A peer-reviewed software suite developed by the USDA Forest Service (including Eco, Canopy, Landscape, and Design) designed to inventory, quantify, and model urban forest structure, ecosystem services, and economic benefits.