Description
Manage city street and park trees to enhance safety, health, equity, and environmental benefits. Inventory and assess urban forests, appraise risk and value, plan planting and maintenance cycles, enforce tree ordinances, and coordinate permits and utility conflicts while ensuring compliance with municipal and environmental regulations. Protect trees during development, manage pests and diseases, engage the community, and oversee budgets, contractors, and crews to achieve canopy goals.
- • Monitor contractor performance and compliance with municipal codes, permits, and environmental regulations for urban forestry work.
- • Develop short- and long-term urban forest management and canopy expansion plans aligned with city goals.
- • Supervise municipal arborists, tree crews, and consultants.
- • Select and prepare planting sites, specifying soil remediation, structural soils, root paths, and tree pit or bioswale designs.
- • Plan and oversee planting, pruning, removal, and young-tree establishment cycles; manage nursery stock procurement.
- • Negotiate and manage contracts for tree planting, maintenance, consulting, and urban wood utilization.
- • Coordinate and lead storm-response and hazard-tree operations to restore public safety and services.
- • Determine pruning, protection, and removal methods that minimize risk to people, infrastructure, and urban ecosystems.
- • Analyze inventory and site data to evaluate canopy cover, species diversity, growth, mortality, and ecosystem services.
- • Monitor newly planted and restored sites to ensure establishment, soil health, and right-of-way compliance.
- • Plan and implement projects that enhance habitat, stormwater management, and soil and air quality through urban trees and green infrastructure.
- • Plan and direct tree inventories, risk assessments, and related studies; prepare technical reports, maps, and recommendations.
- • Inspect street and park trees, nurseries, and contractor work for health, risk, and specification compliance.
- • Map street, park, and right-of-way trees using GIS to track condition, work history, and canopy metrics.
- • Conduct public education and outreach on tree care, benefits, and ordinance requirements; support volunteer planting events.
- • Procure nursery trees and planting materials consistent with species selection, biosecurity, and canopy equity goals.
- • Coordinate with utilities, transportation, and developers on tree protection, clearances, and work scheduling.
- • Develop and enforce tree protection standards and permits for construction and right-of-way activities.
- • Manage budgets, grants, and reporting for urban forestry programs.
- • Monitor urban wildlife interactions and assess the impacts of tree work on habitats and nesting seasons.
- • Plan and oversee the design and maintenance of urban greenways, shade corridors, and park forestry features.
- • Engage private property owners to obtain permissions for inventories, plantings, or removals and provide site-specific guidance.
- • Provide technical advice on species selection, pest and disease management, pruning standards, and risk mitigation to residents and agencies.
- • Develop and refine urban wood reuse and milling programs from removed trees.
- • Improve and standardize tree inventory, risk rating, and canopy measurement methods and QA/QC procedures.
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O*NET occupational data (work activities, skills, knowledge).
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This site includes information from O*NET by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. Career Clutch has modified some of this information for student readability. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Last reviewed: Jan 2026
