Urban forests are essential because of the many ecosystem services they provide such as heat reduction, carbon storage, rainwater control, improved air quality and many more, supporting the environmental and human health. As climate change worsens, temperature is expected to continue to rise. However, it is unclear how climate change will influence the ability of urban forests to provide these ecosystem services, and how they could be managed to maximize their benefits. This project will investigate how trees respond to climatic events in the urban environment and will determine whether urban forests are resilient to these changes. We will asses this based on their location and characteristics, such as species type, age, and growth rate based on dendrochronological analyzes. We will also look at how trees coped with past drought events in order to forecast the effect of future conditions on the urban forest across the major cities in Canada. We will also evaluate the capacity of carbon sequestration and growth of trees across a gradient of urbanization: intensely urbanized (city centers), moderately urbanized (residential), and least urbanized conditions (parks).
