Tree Risk Management:
In today’s society, trees are viewed as a safe part of the urban environment. There is an expectation you can safely sit or park under a tree in the neighborhood without fear of the tree falling over.
When a tree accident occurs, issues of liability, responsibility and “who should pay” come to the forefront. Four conditions that determine the presence of liability associated with tree failures include:
- Duty, the obligation or responsibility to care for trees.
- Breach, failure to act in a reasonable manner.
- Cause, that the breach of duty caused the injury to take place.
- Harm, damage or injury.
Premise liability suggests property owners have a duty to maintain their property and protect the public from foreseeable tree hazards. A property owner who fails to protect the public from a known, foreseeable hazard resulting in injury or property damage may be held liable in a lawsuit.
Certified arborists are involved in managing tree risk and hazard evaluation is a component of risk management. Arborists act to reduce risk by examining trees, rating their likelihood of failure and recommend a course of action to abate the hazard and reduce the risk. Tree risk assessment and tree inventories are procedures that demonstrate a property owner’s pro-active action to meet their “duty of care”.
Tree Risk Management Services:
- Tree risk inspection and assessment
- Tree health inspection and assessment
- Assessment summary report including analysis and recommendations.
- Tree risk policy and management plans for commercial properties, public open spaces, urban forest managers, agencies and jurisdictions.
What is Tree Risk Assessment?
By definition, a tree hazard cannot exist without a potential target. A target is a person or object that would be injured or damaged by a tree failure. Therefore, hazard assessment not only focuses on the tree but on the potential presence of a target.
Managing tree risk can be a subjective process. Our ability to predict tree failure is still limited, tree risk assessment techniques involve examining the tree for structural defects, associating the defect with a known pattern of failure and then rating the degree of risk.
The three components of tree risk assessment are:
- A tree or tree part with a potential to fail.
- The environment that may contribute to the failure.
- The person or object that would be injured or damaged by a failure (known as the target).
By conducting a thorough evaluation, the defective parts of a tree that are likely to fail are identified so they can be treated or abated. However, hazard ratings derived from risk assessment are only a tool and alone cannot strictly define a course of action. A skilled arborist understands ratings are relative and different treatments might be prescribed for trees with identical ratings!
Protect the beauty, value and functionality of the trees on your property. RDCS LLS is an independent tree arborist consultant, certified tree risk assessor and professional horticulturist.
Use a trusted professional,