Trees as urban infrastructure

Urban trees help address many of the challenges of modern society, including mitigating carbon emissions, contributing to climate resilience and adaptation, restoring natural capital and increasing biodiversity, enabling and facilitating active travel, and promoting mental and physical wellbeing. This chapter explains what engineers and other built environment practitioners need to know before working with trees in the urban environment and provides an overview of design and delivery of trees in the hard landscape. It considers the physiological needs of trees (water, sunlight, gas exchange), and how this influences the requirements of their planting environment, and care and maintenance after planting. It describes the urgent need to protect and retain existing trees on new developments, and during construction. It covers the common infrastructure and environmental issues that can arise from poorly planted and maintained trees, and links to British and international standards for working with trees. It outlines effective project management, how to design with trees, and provides technical solutions to common conflicts at the intersection of green and grey infrastructure. It sets out how engineers, built environment practitioners and tree specialists should work together to ensure that trees have equal footing with grey infrastructure in urban areas.