Characterizing comprehensiveness of urban forest management plans in Washington State

Urban forest management plans serve as a municipality's guiding document for management of its urban trees and urban forest. This paper presents results of a content analysis and evaluation of the comprehensiveness of 39 urban forest management plans in Washington State. Comprehensiveness is the degree to which a plan includes a review of the current state of the resource, a vision for the future state, goals and objectives, an action plan for implementation, and a plan for monitoring progress. We also explored whether municipality size, community involvement, plan author, or funding source influence plan comprehensiveness. Plan comprehensiveness varies, and although most plans included the results of a tree inventory, very few conducted a full assessment of the current state of the urban forest. Tree maintenance, tree establishment, and tree protection were addressed most frequently, and many of the plans included a vision statement. The majority of plans included detailed action steps for implementing goals related to tree maintenance and tree establishment, and about a quarter of the plans included an implementation plan. Very few plans addressed monitoring and adaptive management, and no plan included a detailed strategy for monitoring the implementation of the plan. Larger municipalities tend to have more comprehensive plans, and community involvement in the plan development process appears to positively influence the overall comprehensiveness score. No relationship was found between plan author or receipt of grant funding and plan comprehensiveness. Our approach for evaluating plan comprehensiveness suggests a useful framework for future plan development, revision, and evaluation.