About the Project
The Urban Forestry Footprint Mapping project was initiated in 2017 by Dr. Danijela Puric-Mladenovic in collaboration with Dr. Adrina C. Bardekjian. It was developed to visually, graphically, and quantitatively represent the extent and intensity of municipal urban forestry activities and stewardship across Canada.
With support from Tree Canada, the project aims to improve understanding of the current state of urban forestry in Canadian municipalities and to support collaboration, research, and deeper analysis.
By making this information accessible, the project serves as a knowledge-sharing platform for practitioners, municipal staff and planners, stewardship organizations, researchers, and the broader public. It is intended to support those assessing, improving, or developing urban forestry programs.
Urban Forestry in Canada
With both the 2018 dataset (Urban Forestry Footprint Map Version 1.0) and the 2025 dataset (Version 2.0), users can explore changes and trends in urban forestry across municipalities over a seven-year period.
Information is organized into seven categories to support navigation and analysis: Urban Forestry Departments, Professionals, Plans and Management Programs, Policies, By-laws, Inventories, and Pest, Disease, and Control. The interactive maps are paired with graphical outputs to present the data in a clear, comparable, and measurable format.
The term Urban Forestry was coined by Dr. Eric Jorgensen at the Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto, in 1965. In practice, urban forestry includes a wide range of greening, planning, management, stewardship, conservation, and policy activities in towns and cities.
Although urban tree and greening activities have a long history in Canada, their geographic distribution and overall scale are often difficult to compare nationally. This project helps fill that gap through systematic data collection and spatial mapping.
Contact
Dr. Danijela Puric-Mladenovic
University of Toronto profile
Forests in Settled & Urban Landscapes
Forestry at John H. Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto