Arboricultural Biomechanics: How Arboricultural Practice Affects the Likelihood ofTree FailureSection Six of Urban Forest Sustainability

摘要

Arboriculture involves managing amenity trees to enhance their many values and retain them as landscape assets. Biomechanics is concerned with the mechanical (i.e., physical) aspects of biological organisms. Tree biomechanics is an important area of study in basic (e.g., Botany, Ecology, Evolutionary Biology) and applied (e.g., Arboriculture, Forestry, Horticulture) sciences. In the applied sciences, research in tree biomechanics has primarily considered aspects of the likelihood of failure of individual trees or forested stands and plantations. Understanding the likelihood of failure is obviously important because of the adverse consequences—loss of life or property, or loss of value of the tree or stand— which can sometimes be very costly.