Vienna in climate change: This is how we save our city trees!

Vienna in climate change: This is how we save our city trees!

In the face of progressive climate change, cities worldwide have to find innovative approaches to ensure the health of their city trees. In Vienna, climate change is a serious challenge that heavily burdened flora and fauna. In order to protect the more than 500,000 city trees, the Viennese rely on a comprehensive care system and on the sponge city principle that improves rainwater storage in urban areas. According to the information from press.gv.at are 70 tree maintenance and certified tree inspection in the city employed. They are supported in the summer of 150 additional employees who take care of the irrigation of the trees.

As a result of the extreme weather conditions, the need for effective irrigation solutions grows. Around 4,000 to 4,500 trees are newly planted in Vienna every year. In order to help the young trees in their initial growth phase, they become well -kept for at least four years, while heat waves even cultivated twice a week. In these critical phases, around 400,000 liters of water are made available daily to maintain the vitality of the trees.

irrigation strategies and their importance

The city uses over 1,000 automatic irrigation systems and 25,000 special watering bags, each with 75 liters of water. These measures mean that the failure rate of the young trees is only 0.5 %. However, the causes of tree losses are diverse and range from delivery damage to vandalism towards extreme storms.

Another point of view is the adaptation of the tree range to the city climate. By selecting 25 different types of tree, the resilience of the urban tree landscape is taken into account. The sponge city principle not only serves water storage, but also promotes the development of healthy root systems that are essential for the trees.

reactions of the trees to climate stress

insights from dendrochronological examinations show that different tree species react differently to dry stress. While 23 bogus acacias in Hamburg recorded a growth decline in very dry years, they quickly recovered the following year. In contrast, older stems at urban locations suffer from drought stress than their younger counterparts due to poor water availability, which are not yet sufficiently established.

on the other hand, other tree species such as the 26 mountain corrugated trees show a significant reduction in growth in dry phases. This data illustrates the important role that resilience and adaptation play in city tree care. In this context, the Federal Government has established the German adaptation strategy to climate change (DAS) in order to create a comprehensive framework for climate adaptation. The second progress report on this relates to the linking of climate effects and fields of action in Germany, which underlines the comprehensive commitment in climate compensation in adaptation of climate Environmental Bundesamt.de .