TITLE:
Implications of Planting Southern Live Oak Trees in the Wrong Urban Space in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana United States
AUTHORS:
Lucinda A. Kangwana, Yaw A. Twumasi, Zhu H. Ning, Ronald O. Okwemba, Janeth E. Mjema, Priscilla M. Loh, John Bosco Namwamba
KEYWORDS:
Southern Live Oak, Tree Species, Urban Space, Wrong Urban Space
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Forestry,
Vol.13 No.4,
September
5,
2023
ABSTRACT: Afforestation has been observed as a green trend in urban areas. The
incorporation of trees in urban infrastructure is highly recommended to act as
a solution to outlined environmental problems such as global warming. However,
it has been precipitously introduced in cities, towns, and metropolitans. The
introduction of the green practice was so abrupt that it became devoid to
meeting the essential needs for tree growth, thus, failing to bring out the desired effects.
Inappropriately selecting and planting trees in urban spaces has resulted in
stressed trees that are deficient at reaching up to the calculated goals and in
the long run end up being problematic. The main objective of this study is to
evaluate the implications of planting southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) trees in the wrong urban space so as to aid in
recommending sustainable green solutions for the urban community. By studying
southern live oaks planted in Howell Community Park and three randomly selected
areas in Southern University Baton Rouge Campus, this study analyzes how the
selection of these tree species in the urban spaces influenced their growth and
general well-being. These urban spaces were randomly drafted based on
accessibility and availability of several southern live oaks. Planting approaches
in the four study areas were explored and the general health condition of the
trees was determined using the tree appraisal method presented by the i-tree
model: my tree. ArcGIS collector was used to collect the GPS coordinates of the
trees and ArcMap was used to generate the maps of the study areas. ArcMap
software geolocated the coordinates of the southern live oaks in all the
four-study areas. The software was used to generate shapefiles of the
four study areas and their location in East Baton Rouge. The analysis of the
results proved that none of the southern live oaks had an excellent health
condition and most of the trees experienced different issues due to planting
them in the wrong urban spaces.