Public Opinion on Urban Trees and Ecosystem Disservices – a Pilot Study

Though research on ecosystem performances lately has focused on services, few researchers have pointed out that disservices must be taken into account. Only a few attempts have been made to summarize or categorise the ecosystem disservices. There is an obvious lack of knowledge on ecosystem disservices. In urban areas the environment is governed by experts and there is a multifaceted public with different interests and needs. The public’s perspective may deviate from the experts. Thus, there is a need to assimilate views from the public in a comprehensive assessment of services and disservices derived from trees in an urban environment. There is a need for both a conceptual model to interpret the public opinion and a system to collect and assess views from the public. The aim of this study is to explore how the department for complaints can be used as a source of knowledge for tree management. The questions for the study are what kinds of ecosystem disservices from urban trees are reported in the department for complaints and how are the complaints distributed among the residents? The complaints records from three Swedish cities were studied with regards to the feedback on urban trees that the public had contributed with.