Types of Tree Damage on Urban Forest (Case Study: Greenbelt-Formed Urban Forest, Bogor City – West Java)

Abstract

Nowadays the quality of environment in urban area is getting decrease. One of ways that initiated concerning urban environmental quality management is setting urban forest in appropriate type and form based on main environmental problem issues in certain urban area. Greenbelt is one of urban forest form that most developed today. The greenbelt of roadside has many functions such as providing shade, trapping and absorbing the pollutants, reducing the noise and esthetical function. Trees are the main component to set the greenbelt. As trees are the most important component of greenbelt, health monitoring and maintaining of trees are needed in urban forest management. One of the methods used for monitoring the trees’ health is by inventing the trees’ damages. It is important since trees’ damage is potential in causing accidents and material loss. The aims of this study are to identify level of trees’ damages at roadside, identify types of trees’ damages and identify tress’ damage that potential causing accident. The result from this study hopefully can be useful to providing about the trees’ damage along greenbelt of dr. Semeru roadside and a recommendation to prevent and reduction the trees damage in greenbelt of dr. Semeru street of Bogor city. This study was conducted during 3 months (September-November 2009) along dr. Semeru street. Trees’ damages inventory was using Forest Health Monitoring method by observing three indications of tress’ damages, those were location of the damages, type of damages and level of seriousness condition of the trees. The trees’ damage along greenbelt of dr. Semeru roadside achived 91.38% that equal to 371 trees out of 406 total of trees there. Trees damage level was included as low level since the Damage Index Value (DIV) showed 6.12 (the highest scale is 21). There were 709 tress’ damage types. The biggest to smallest types of trees’ damages consisted of cancer (169 cases = 23.84%), broken or dead branch (116 cases = 16.36%), conks, fruiting bodies, and other indicators of advanced decay (109 cases = 15.37%), open wound (74 cases = 10.44%), brooms on roots or bole (68 cases = 9.59%), excessive brancing or brooms (53 cases = 7.48%), damaged foliage or shoots (29 cases = 40.09%), lost of apical dominance, dead terminal (27 cases = 3.81%), resinosis or gummosis (25 cases = 3.53%), broken bole or roots lees than 0.91 m (23 cases = 3.24%), broken or dead roots beyond 0.91 m (16 cases = 2.26%). There were 22 decay and holed dangerous tress. Cavity treatments can be done to maintain those trees but if the decays and holes were not forgiven, the best treatment is trees cutting.