Talk summary:

North American urban landscapes are facing critical pressures such as climate change, human health concerns, and loss of biodiversity and habitat. Urban forests are a critical component of these landscapes and can help meet these pressures in several ways. The emerging discipline of urban forestry can inform policy and practice to design and plan for future forests in human landscapes. The field currently lacks tested approaches to holistically integrate the complex multiple factors involved with future planning. This study explores a new framework for a scenario-based approach incorporating a design process to examine potential solutions to these complex problems. A Canadian case study was used to develop and evaluate this framework approach combining multiple methods. 

Bio:

Sara Barron is the Program Director for the Urban Forestry programs (Bachelor of Urban Forestry and Master in Urban Forestry Leadership) at the University of British Columbia. Prior to this role, she was a lecturer at the University of Melbourne. Sara’s research interests bridge landscape architecture and urban forestry. Her dissertation explored the design and assessment of future urban forest scenarios in compact communities. She has expertise in large-scale sustainable community planning and climate change research projects and holds a Master of Landscape Architecture degree.