Current Situation Of Landscape Tree Species Planning In China

Urban landscape tree species planning is the process of selecting and arranging tree species to enable them to play better of their landscaping functions in the cities. As an important component of urban green space system planning, scientific and reasonable landscape tree species planning is the premise to achieve the ecological and aesthetic function of the urban green system. With the promotion of our emphasis on urban ecological construction, the urban greening in China has got great development; however, there were still some problems such as the lack of diversity in urban plant landscape and the poor growth of landscape plants caused by selecting species inappropriately. These problems reflect the fact that the current urban tree species planning have not been implemented properly. To find out the reasons, the compilation, management and implementation during the urban landscape tree species planning has been investigated and analyzed. Besides, planning and guide in foreign countries which related to our urban tree species planning have been analyzed and then some contents and methods have been referenced. Finally, suggestions have been proposed in order to guide the urban greening successfully. The main results are as follows:1. The development process of our urban landscape tree spices planning was studied and divided into five stages as germination stage, stagnation stage, progressive development stage, formation stage and perfecting stage according to the critical events occurred that influence the development of the planning. The characteristics of each stage have been summarized. The result indicated that the urban greening's development is the root motivation of our urban landscape tree species planning, and the relevant researches contributed greatly to the development of the planning. But the development of the planning could not keep pace with our greening development, and the lack of retrospect and reflection result in the poor guidance of the planning. 2. The planning development situation was investigated, the results indicated that there was no unified management department and publishing platform, so the exact number of the cities which had compiled the planning could not be identified. This phenomenon indicated that lacking of unified management and the poor communication of the information of the planning impeded the learning from each other between cities, and result in the poor implementation of the planning.3.27 cities' urban landscape tree species planning textbooks have been collected, summarized and analyzed, the results indicated that the planning contents of these cities have meet the requirement of the Outline of urban green system planning(Trial), but the form of each contents was quite different, Some of them met the trends of their urban greening development and worth learning, but there still existed six problems.4. Methods and contents of the research of our urban landscape tree species planning have been analyzed. Results indicated that a planning methodology had been formed, but some methods lacked of scientific basis and some concepts were obscured explode the problems that the basic data which guide the planning was lacked, so further research should be carried out.5. The compilation units, planning staff, management department and landscape architectures have been investigated. Results indicated that the urban tree species planning in China was compiled by urban planning department, but was in the charge of the landscaping department, this disconnection between the compilation and management resulted in the week pertinence of the planning. The poor communication between the management department and the landscape architectures, the planning was not published publicly and the poor guidance of some contents resulted in the poor implementation through landscape architectures. It is worth noticing that planning staff recognize the importance of the planning, most of them thought it necessary to implement the urban landscape tree species planning independently according to cities greening status.6. There is no tree species planning in foreign counties but there were related tree master plan and street tree master plan.15 tree master plans and 14 street tree master plans from the United State, Australia and Canada have been collected and summarized. Results indicated that the planning objects, contents and methods, planning responsible unit in China and abroad were quite different. Seven references were proposed from the aspects of tree investigation and analysis, planning goals and objectives, tree selection guide and tree precinct panning. 7. Combining lessons from foreign planning and the studies of our current status, six suggestions have been proposed from the aspects of compilation, implementation and research to improve our urban landscape tree species planning:(1) Raising the emphasis of the planning in related departments; (2) Further research should be carried out on urban vegetation, biological characteristics and eco-efficiency of the landscape trees to support the planning;(3) Multilateral cooperation and communication should be carried out to compiled the urban landscape tree species planning;(4) Implement the urban landscape tree species planning independently according to cities greening status; (5) Improving the scientificity and the enforceability of the planning contents; (6) Improving the management to facilitate the implementation of our urban tree species planning.