Interdisciplinary citizen science on urban green ingrastructure for building sustainable cities

Green Infrastructure is a nature-based-solution with the potential of mitigating the harmful and even deadly consequences of climate change and urbanisation in our urban areas. In particular, urban trees provide us with multiple ecosystem services, such as storm water control, carbon sequestration, soil health and temperature regulation. When supported appropriately, urban trees have impactful positive effects on urban sustainability and human wellbeing, seen as improvements not just in the environment, but also in human health and local economic growth. Nevertheless, the lack of integrated studies to understand the role of urban trees and their best management has resulted in conflicting guidance and approaches to land and park management. Moreover, the lack of community awareness and engagement around urban environmental challenges is often a further barrier for improving the sustainability and resilience of our cities. Here we present a multidisciplinary environmental citizen science research on urban trees from three European cities, Chantilly, London and Birmingham. We seek to increase our understanding of the benefits of green infrastructure with special focus on trees, using multiple disciplines (hydrology, soil health, tree vitality and microclimate) to allow local communities to better plan and adapt to extreme weather events. The success of our work relies in working with leading scientists of each of these fields as well as the community, therefore creating awareness, upskilling and integrating citizens in taking role in managing our environmental issues