Urban forestry approaches urban greenspace from the perspective (one of) the city’s core ‘hardwares’: its tree-based resources. The broadly accepted definition of urban forestry, based on Miller is ‘the art, science and technology of managing trees and forest resources in and around urban community ecosystems for the physiological, sociological, economic and aesthetic benefits trees provide society’¹. As such, the breadth of impact of the urban forest necessarily positions it within multiple knowledge realms: the earth and life sciences, the humanities, social sciences, and the built environment disciplines.

At the TU Delft, urban forestry is interpreted from the perspective of built environment disciplines, whereby ‘the urban forest’ is nested within the concept of greenspace planning, design and management at various spatial scales. From this perceptive the urban forest encompasses features, typologies and systems, ranging from individual trees on public and private lands, through to wooded streets, squares, parks and woodlands, neighbourhood green networks, and green-blue systems at the scale of city and urban region.

The various scales of urban forestry also reveal the multi-dimensionality of the urban forest, impacting as it does on environmental, ecological, socio-spatial and economic health of cities and urban communities. As such, urban forestry encompasses all these dimensions, and assumes their synergy to be fundamental to any sustainable urban environment. This multi-dimensionality resonates with the discipline of landscape architecture and informs the further elaboration of the initiative in the section landscape architecture. The group address various dimensions in research, education, valorisation and advocacy (see research projects).