Understanding and managing urban forest socio-ecological systems to promote ecosystem functioning and resilience
by Robert Fahey
Urban forests provide a wide array of benefits and services to urban populations, but these ecosystem services are often highly dependent on the specific characteristics of the urban forest, not just the presence of trees. Urban forest presence, condition, and related benefits are a product of a complex socio-ecological system defined by land use, ownership, governance patterns, stewardship networks, land use legacies, regional species pools, and disturbance histories. This presentation details a range of work focused on understanding how urban forest socio-ecological systems drive the presence and condition of urban forests across metropolitan regions and discusses potential strategies that might be employed to promote resilience in these systems.
Date: Friday, February 14
Time: 12:00 - 1:00pm
Room: WBY 001
About the speaker:
Robert Fahey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment and the Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of Connecticut. He is also the Associate Director of the Eversource Energy Center at UConn and a Research Fellow at the Center for Tree Science at The Morton Arboretum.
Bob’s research is focused on understanding canopy structure-function relationships in forests, particularly in relation to disturbance resilience. He works across the spectrum of anthropogenic impacts in forests from urban to rural, and is particularly interested in adapting ecological and silvicultural knowledge to human-dominated landscapes.
More information: https://faheylab.weebly.com/
For more information, contact: PSLA at psla@uconn.edu