"Minimizing Your Footprint, Enhancing Your Performance"
Trees provide incredible value to communities, from increased air quality and wildlife to decreased energy use and costs. A tree inventory helps identify these assets and achieve management goals that maximize the potential of urban forests. Tree inventories gather accurate information on the health and diversity of a population of trees by documenting properties such as quantity, location, condition, species, size, safety risks and maintenance requirements.
Compiling this information helps detect and pinpoint areas where removals, plantings and corrective treatments are needed based on the quantity and quality of trees in a range of locations. The synthesis of these factors can be utilized to create comprehensive management plans and inform prudent budgets for a variety of property types.
There are many important reasons to perform tree inventories. A tree inventory is the first step to developing a forestry management plan for a community. If an inventory reveals many dead and diseased trees in an area, this suggests that a program incorporating new tree plantings is needed. Inventories also educate communities on the importance of a healthy and well maintained urban forest as well as what species are best suited for certain areas. The information collected in inventories is instrumental in prioritizing areas for maintenance to increase efficiency and reduce potential liability that comes with tree hazards. Tree inventories also provide a determination of the monetary value of a community's trees for factors such as property value and storm water management which helps demonstrate the importance of a tree program to community leaders.
At EC Consulting we are equipped to assist property owners and municipalities with all steps of the tree inventory process. We plan inventories by identifying types of information needed and assessing the requirements for labor, equipment and funding. We implement inventories through collection of a wide range of tree data as well as training communities and commissions on what data to gather and how to gather it. From there, we are proficient at analyzing data collected to establish objectives for tree maintenance such as removals, pruning, and planting of trees of diverse species and ages. Finally, we can provide maintenance services or training for communities to efficiently and properly conduct their own maintenance operations.
