City of Melbourne

Urban Forest Canopy Forecasting

From 2012 to 2015, the City of Melbourne developed ten precinct plans to guide City tree planting toward meeting the 40% canopy cover target by 2040. Canopy cover polygons, forecasts and targets were developed for each precinct. Since then, change has occurred on the landscape and the City has updated its canopy cover polygons. Staff now need to update the assumptions that were included in the original canopy forecasts to inform how many trees per year should be planted into each precinct to maintain progress towards the 40% canopy cover target. Diamond Head is working with the City to update the City’s canopy cover forecasts by:

• Developing a canopy forecast model with parameters that include rates of planting, mortality and growth, and that is calibrated to reflect change in canopy cover that occurred between 2008 and 2017.

• Working with City staff to identify future planting opportunities, anticipated development losses and gains, mortality risks, and any other data that could help inform the model and the outputs that would be useful to staff.

• Providing, informed by the canopy forecast model, updated canopy cover targets for each precinct along with the anticipated annual rate of planting required to meet that target and the city-wide canopy target of 40% by 2040.