Tree change and its correlates in a university suburb, 2004-2013

Urban trees make significant economic, environmental, social, cultural and spiritual contributions to people and other sentient beings. They are also easily influenced by human activities. There is an ample literature demonstrating that private property is increasingly important for nature conservation and local species changes. Although there is much of research on the reasons for tree death, there are few direct data on the influences of ownership changes on changes in garden trees. The current study evaluates the impacts of property sales, surface changes and area on tree changes over a 9 year period between 2004 and 2013 in Sandy Bay, Tasmania, Australia. Aerial image analysis and ground survey were used to collect data from two sets of properties, one selected on the basis of observable change and another selected randomly. We found that property hard surface, property size and initial tree numbers better predicted tree loss than the frequency of sales of properties.