Urban green space management : manual for local municipalities

One of the goals of the project “GreenMan” (ELRI-177) is to develop a system for managing urban green areas in the border regions of Estonia, Latvia and Russia while enhancing the cooperation between specialists in urban green space planning and universities focusing on green space planning and management. One of the outcomes of the “Green Education” work package executed by the Estonian University of Life Sciences is this manual and the accompanying study course on green space management. The manual gathers together and presents good practices for maintaining urban green spaces. All the issues are viewed in the context of the environmental, social and economic challenges of the new century such as better use of limited natural as well as economic resources, enhancing biodiversity and dealing with the pressures caused by increasing numbers of city dwellers, their lack of everyday contact with nature and their need for recreation. Traditional ornamental parks and gardens can only look their best and function well where there are sufficient financial resources, suitable equipment and well-trained staff to manage and maintain them. In their absence it may be a necessary to look at alternative and innovative practices that save money and require lower intensities of all types of inputs. The manual is mainly intended to help the staff of local municipalities to focus their available resources in the most efficient way onto the most important maintenance activities and to nurture and care for the often sensitive plants under their care which, if incorrectly treated can be lost or their value diminished. The manual presents an overview of all the relevant topics of urban green space management and provides the most up to date information about what to focus on in preparing management plans, what maintenance works to order and how to make sure the tasks are properly fulfilled while securing a high quality end result. The recommendations presented in this manual are based on expert reports made within the framework of the project as well as from a wide range of recent high quality and relevant literature on the topic. No references are given directly in the text but all base materials are listed at the end of the manual. All illustrations are provided by Labie Koki. We hope that the manual will be used as the first point of reference and that as many of the recommendations as possible will be followed. Urban green space is as important a part of the infrastructure of an urban area as the roads, services and communications and should be given the same degree of protection and maintenance. Liina Jürisoo, Anna-Liisa Unt, Simon Bell, Jekaterina Balicka, Editors.