Publications

Many environmental and social services provided by urban and peri-urban forests are difficult to assess and quantify, for example, in monetary terms. This weakens the position of urban forestry in urban development and land use planning discussions. Therefore, there is a need to develop assessment approaches that can strengthen the policy-science interface by acting as decision-support tools within wider urban and regional policy-making contexts. Examples are presented where different methods for assessing social and environmental values of existing and new urban woodland were applied. These include an economic valuation study applying hedonic pricing assessing the effect of peri-urban afforestation on house prices in Denmark. Social valuation through social value mapping was studied in Helsinki, Finland. Finally, in Malaysia, various tools were combined to assess the multiple costs and benefits association with preserving one of the last remaining original forest areas near Kuala Lumpur. The different assessment tools have their respective strengths and weaknesses from a decision-support perspective, and for use under different circumstances. Combining different urban forest valuation tools is the preferred option in land-use planning.