We found the planetary boundaries (PB) most frequentlydiscussed urban forestry policy documents were biosphereintegrity, climate change, atmospheric aerosol loading (airpollution), tied with land-system change. We found the mostfrequently discussed social foundations (SF) were health,education, resilience, and social equity. Based on this analysisthere are notable gaps within policy documents that lackdiscussion on certain planetary boundaries and socialfoundations. These gaps include gender equality, oceanacidification, and stratospheric ozone depletion.

Summary

• Selected 4 urban forestry policy documents to evaluate whether North American policy frameworks in urbanforestry intersected with the PB and SF frameworks of sustainability.

• Documents were analyzed using a priori qualitative coding (Nvivo), where text from the documents werecoded based on relevance to each of the 9 PB and 11 SF.

• Once finished with coding of all documents, a keyword search was implemented to ensure all relevantreferences were captured.

• Analyzed all references for each PB and SF for common themes and key takeaway points.

Methods

Isurbanforestry'livingwithinthedoughnut'?Ananalysisofurbanforestrypolicyguidancedocumentsaccordingtotheplanetary

boundariesandsocialfoundationssustainabilityframeworksJaclynMeyers a,MimiPayne a,&JessVogt b

a B.A.EnvironmentalStudiesstudentb AssistantProfessorofEnvironmentalScienceDepartmentofEnvironmentalScience&Studies,CollegeofScience&Health,DePaulUniversity

GapsandRecommendations

ResultsandDiscussion

Introduction

Robertson,G.,&Mason, A.(2016). AssessingthesustainabilityofagriculturalandurbanforestsintheUnitedStates.USDAForestService.

Salbitano,F.,Borelli,S.,Conigliaro,M.,&Yujuan,C.(2016).Guidelinesonurbanandperi-urbanforestry.FAO.

Network,C.U.F.(2015).CanadianUrbanForestStrategy2013-2018.TreeCanada.

USDAForestService(2015).Ten-YearUrbanForestryActionPlan:2016-2026.NationalUrbanandCommunityForestryAdvisoryCouncil.

DocumentsAnalyzed

SelectLiteratureCitedRaworth,K.(2012).Asafeandjustspaceforhumanity:canwelivewithinthe

doughnut. OxfamPolicyandPractice:ClimateChangeandResilience, 8(1),1-26.

Raworth,K.(2017). Doughnuteconomics:sevenwaystothinklikea21st-centuryeconomist.ChelseaGreenPublishing.

Rockström,J.,Steffen,W.,Noone,K.,Persson,Å.,Chapin,F.S.,&Lambin,E.W.etal.(2009).Planetaryboundaries:exploringthesafeoperatingspaceforhumanity. EcologyandSociety, 14(2),32.

Steffen,W.,Richardson,K.,Rockström,J.,Cornell,S.E.,Fetzer,I.,Bennettetal(2015).Planetaryboundaries:Guidinghumandevelopmentonachangingplanet. Science, 347(6223),1259855.

• Scientistsdevelopedtwoframeworks,PBandSFtoguidehumanitytowardanecologicallyandsociallysafespace

• Foreachofthe9PB,scientistsproposedasetoflimitsplacedbeforethepointofnoreturn,anditiscrucialthatwelivewithintheseproposedlimits.Onceweexceed,changeswillbeirreversible.

• ScientistsproposedtheSF:abasicsetofneedsandhumanrightsnecessaryforlife.Bothsetsofboundariesaredeeplyconnectedbecausesociallivingdependsonplanetarycondition.

• Theideaoftransgressingtheseboundariesresultedinashiftinviewingeconomicsthroughahumanitarianscope,whichincludedtheconsiderationofhumanbenefitsandqualityoflivingforhumans.

• Inactingtostaywithintheseboundaries,itisessentialtoconsidermorethan80%ofAmericansandCanadiansliveinurbanenvironments;therefore,itiscrucialthatwemaintainthestructureandhealthofurbanforestsincitiesbecauseoftheirsignificantimpactontheplanetandonhumans.

(Steffenetal.,2015)

(Raworth 2017)

Doughnut ModelPlanetary Boundaries

• Significantgapsnotedinourresearchweregenderequality,whichisofparticularinfluenceindevelopingcountries;oceanacidification,whichlacksrelevanceduegeographiclocationforwhicheachdocumentwaswritten,andstratosphericozonedepletion.

• Expanduponcurrentstrongareasinurbanforestrypolicydocumentssuchaseducation,health,andclimatechange.

• IntegratePBs/SFswithgapstomakethemstrongerandgivethemmorerelevanceandunderstandingintheurbanforestrycommunity(i.e.,discussgenderequality witheducation).

Theme1:Treesmitigateenvironmentalstressorsoftheplanetaryboundariesbyprovidingbenefitsfortheenvironment.

• Treescanplayalargeroleinmakingcitiesmoreresilienttotheeffectsofclimatechangebysequestrationofgreenhousegasses

• AstudyobservedthaturbantreesintheUnitedStatesannuallyremoveapproximately651,000metrictons(717,000tons)ofairpollution,withavalueof$4.7billion

Theme2:Treesmitigatesocialstressorsandhelpsocietymeetthesocialfoundations

• Urbanforestsboostpeople’smental,physicalandphysiologicalhealth.Particularlywithhospitalpatientswhohaveafasterrecoverytimewhenprovidedwithamorepleasantview

• Leverageeducation toraiseawarenessofurbanforestry;bowthattiesallofthesocialfoundationstogether

• Reductionofenergy costsforA/Candheating

Theme3:Treesareimpactedbytheenvironmentandhumans

• Novelentities includetheintroductionofinvasiveplantsandanimals

• AirpollutionandtheimpactsofhighlevelsofCO2

• Resilience oftreestoclimatechangeandmitigationofimpactsthroughenvironmentalstewardship

• Biosphereintegrity (116references)andclimate change (85references)weremostrepresentedforPB.

• Land system change andatmospheric aerosol loading (airpollution)bothhad48references;freshwateruse 46references,andnovelentities38references.

• Health (96references)wasmosttherepresentedSF• Education (59references)wasclosebehindforSFalongwithresilience (45references)andenergy (43references).