Main Content
Advancing Urban Silviculture: Exploring Urban Forest Climate Resiliency through Social and Design Influences
About the Thesis
Within a climate change context, the desired value of urban trees as essential infrastructure drives management that focuses less on the quantity of plantings and more on the quality of plantings, as well as advocacy for preservation. Urban forestry coupled with a silviculture framework that focuses on the people who control the composition, structure, and health of a city’s urban canopy can help create a resilient urban forest. This paper explores tree-literate design, the roles of different landowners, how to create a culture of stewardship, the Rutgers University Tree Planting Festival, and a vision for urban silviculture. With harsher growing conditions and population growth, urban forestry decision-makers need to plan for and recognize the fact that everybody has a crucial role to play in urban forest climate resiliency.
About the Author
Josh Kover is a graduate of the Rutgers University Landscape Architecture program who studied in the Urban Forestry Lab. Josh is an ISA-certified Arborist and was the owner of New Gen Garden: a sustainable landscaping and landscape design company. At Rutgers, he worked with the University Landscape Architect to create a resilient, beautiful, and educational urban forest on campus. His work at Rutgers, IP & O, and within the Urban Forestry Program allowed him to create and organize the RU Tree Planting Festival in April of 2026, where about 550 people helped plant almost 3000 trees on the Rutgers campus. Josh’s goal upon graduating is to continue to experiment with how to create a culture of stewardship within urban forestry that leverages beauty, storytelling, gathering, and magic to connect people to their trees and land.