Growing Trees by Growing Communities: Seminar by Hannah Cooper
May 6th, 2026; 0408 ANS Building, University of Maryland
The seminar titled “Growing Trees by Growing Communities: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Stewardship Management Models on Street Tree Health and Ecophysiology,” presented by Hannah Cooper and advised by Dr. Mitchell Pavao-Zuckerman, focused on an issue that is often overlooked in urban sustainability efforts: the long term care of trees after they are planted. Many cities have invested heavily in tree planting initiatives as a way to increase canopy cover, reduce urban heat, improve air quality, manage stormwater, and create more livable neighborhoods. However, Cooper’s presentation emphasized that planting trees is only the beginning of the process. Without consistent stewardship, many street trees struggle to survive the establishment period, especially in urban environments where they face stress from limited soil space, compacted soils, heat, drought, pollution, physical damage, and inconsistent maintenance.
The central argument of the seminar was that urban tree health depends not only on planting programs, but also on the management models that support trees after planting. Cooper discussed two ongoing projects: a literature review and a field study. The literature review examines barriers to stewardship and considers community based social marketing as a strategy for improving public participation in tree care. The field study compares three stewardship management models operating at different scales in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area: neighborhood, city, and county. These models incorporate varying combinations of professional and homeowner stewardship. Cooper’s research evaluates street trees from these groups, specifically Celtis occidentalis, or hackberry, and Amelanchier, or serviceberry, using visual health assessments as well as quantitative field and laboratory measurements related to tree health and ecophysiology.
I found the presentation especially valuable because it challenged the idea that environmental solutions are complete once infrastructure is installed or, in this case, once trees are planted. Urban forestry is often discussed through the language of numbers: how many trees were planted, how much canopy cover increased, or how much carbon could potentially be stored. While these are important metrics, Cooper’s work made it clear that those numbers are only meaningful if the trees actually survive and thrive over time. A city can plant thousands of trees, but if they are not watered, mulched, monitored for disease, or protected from damage, then the environmental and social benefits of those plantings are greatly reduced. This made the research feel both practical and necessary.
The discussion of stewardship was one of the strongest parts of the seminar. Cooper presented stewardship not as a vague idea of “community care,” but as a set of concrete practices that influence tree establishment and long term health. These practices include watering, mulching, identifying disease, treating pests, and ensuring that trees are not physically damaged. In urban settings, where newly planted trees are often placed along sidewalks, roads, and residential areas, these forms of care can determine whether a tree successfully adapts to its environment. The presentation also highlighted that stewardship is not only an ecological issue, but a social one. Homeowners, neighborhood organizations, city agencies, and county level programs all play different roles in maintaining urban trees. The effectiveness of a stewardship model may therefore depend on how clearly responsibilities are communicated, how accessible resources are, and how invested community members feel in the trees around them.
The use of community based social marketing also seemed like a thoughtful approach. Rather than assuming that people do not care about tree stewardship, CBSM focuses on identifying the barriers that prevent people from participating and then designing strategies to overcome those barriers. For example, residents may not know how often to water a young tree, may not have access to the right tools, may not understand the importance of mulching, or may assume that tree care is solely the responsibility of the city. By addressing these specific obstacles, stewardship programs may be able to increase participation in a more realistic and sustained way. I thought this was an important part of the project because it recognizes that environmental behavior is shaped by knowledge, convenience, motivation, and social norms.
The field study also seemed well designed because it compares management models at multiple scales rather than treating stewardship as a single uniform practice. A neighborhood based model may allow for strong local engagement and personal investment, while a city level model may have more standardized procedures and professional oversight. A county level model may operate with broader coordination but potentially less direct relationship with individual residents. Comparing these models can help determine whether certain structures are more effective in supporting tree health, or whether the best results come from combining professional maintenance with homeowner involvement. The use of both visual observations and quantitative ecophysiological measurements strengthens the study because it allows the researchers to assess not just how trees appear externally, but how they are functioning biologically.
One point that could have been explored more deeply is the challenge of equity in urban tree stewardship. Communities do not all have the same time, resources, or institutional support to care for street trees. Asking homeowners or residents to participate in stewardship may be easier in neighborhoods where people have more flexible schedules, stable housing, access to water, and stronger relationships with local government. In lower income or historically underserved communities, the need for tree canopy may be especially high, but the burden of stewardship may also be more difficult to sustain without external support. Including this dimension more directly would make the project even stronger, especially because urban tree canopy is often connected to environmental justice, heat exposure, and public health.
Overall, Cooper’s seminar presented a compelling argument that urban tree planting must be paired with long term stewardship if cities want to achieve the ecological and social benefits of expanded canopy cover. The project connects environmental science, plant physiology, urban planning, and community engagement in a way that feels directly applicable to real world sustainability challenges. I left the presentation with a clearer understanding that successful environmental management is not only about implementing solutions, but also about maintaining them through thoughtful systems of care. In that sense, “Growing Trees by Growing Communities” was an appropriate title because the project showed that healthy urban forests depend on healthy relationships between researchers, residents, local governments, and the living landscapes they share.