| dc.description.abstract | Urban forests provide a myriad of social, environmental, and economic benefits that help make cities desirable and safe places to live. However, despite the widely acknowledged importance of urban forests, they are often inequitably distributed across cities and leave marginalized populations with disproportionately low access to them and their associated benefits. For this reason, understanding the distribution and change of urban forests is key to ultimately achieving their equitable presence and management. Though urban forest equity is becoming a well- researched phenomenon, there are relatively few studies that address the equity of urban forest change and the associated implications. This study addresses these gaps by examining the relationship between changes in Toronto’s urban forest over a ten-year period and its resulting frequency with four indicators of population marginalization. Diameter growth rate, mortality rate, and establishment rate were used to quantify urban forest change, while basal area per hectare and stems per hectare were used to quantify urban forest frequency. The four indicators of marginalization used in this study were residential instability, economic dependency, ethnocultural composition and situational vulnerability, from the Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation. Bivariate correlation, multiple linear regression, and geographically weighted regression were used to determine if there was a relationship between each urban forest variable and each indicator of marginalization. Bivariate cluster analysis was also used to identify areas in Toronto with the highest occurrences of urban forest inequity. Significant correlations are found between several indicators of marginalization with diameter growth rates, establishment rates, and both frequency measures. Subsequent exploratory data analysis also confirmed that areas in Toronto with the highest establishment rates were also the areas with the highest tree frequency before this change analysis. Ultimately, this suggests that urban forest change in Toronto is not on a path to resolving its inequity, and if the City of Toronto is going to achieve the equitable distribution of its urban forest it needs to adjust its approaches to its development.
Keywords: Urban forest change; Tree frequency; Urban equity; Environmental justice; Toronto, Ontario | en_US |
