Explore Melbourne's
Urban Forest

The City of Melbourne maintains more than 70,000 trees. This website enables you to explore this dataset and some of the challenges facing Melbourne’s Urban Forest.

MAP


Map Explore the tree data

Individual tree data for City of Melbourne trees is presented below. Pan and Zoom into different areas of Melbourne, click on tree symbols to reveal details, and select between different locations and filters.

Drag map, click icons for details

Open bigger map in new window

Map colours and symbols

Colour Age Description


Juvenile
Semi-Mature
Mature
Unknown


Tree Symbols By Genus


Eucalyptus
Platanus Plane Trees
Ulmus Elms
Corymbia Gums
Quercus Oaks
Other

Open data

Access the Urban Forest Tree data via City of Melbourne's Open Data Portal      data.melbourne.vic.gov.au

URBAN FOREST ISSUES


Life Span What happens when trees age?

Age diversity

Like all living things, trees decline in health as they age. Trees that are in poor health are not as effective at providing environmental benefits, such as cooling the city, providing habitat or cleaning the air. If a tree’s health is not expected to improve, it is removed from the landscape to enable a new tree to be planted.

Many of Melbourne’s trees, including those in our iconic boulevards and parks, are well over 100 years old. While they have performed remarkably well to date in faring against droughts, changing climate and urbanisation, their health is declining as they age. Many of Melbourne’s trees were planted at the same time, giving us beautiful landscapes of large trees. Unfortunately, this also means that many trees will decline in health and require removal at the same time. In addition to loss of tree canopy cover and amenity, this can reduce the amount of habitat available for wildlife.

A resilient urban forest features age diversity, with species of varying life spans and growth rates.

A juvenile tree is classified as any young tree planted within the last few years

Semi-mature trees are no longer young but are yet to reach their full potential

A mature tree has reached it’s full potential in the landscape.


Diversity Why is diversity important?

Melbourne's most common tree types - graphed by genus - coloured by age classification

Increasing diversity

A lack of species diversity leaves the urban forest vulnerable to threats from pests, disease, and stress due to climate change. Currently our urban forest is dominated by Eucalypts, Corymbia, Planes, and Elms. Many of these trees were planted at the same time during condensed periods of planting activity, and large numbers of elms and planes are now reaching the end of their life.

Reducing Risk

Combined with the substantial losses associated with an ageing tree population, myrtle rust and sycamore lace bug are current threats to the Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Platanus genera. Diversification is a basic rule for reducing risk. A greater range of species will provide greater resilience and long-term stability for the forest as a whole.

The Urban Forest Strategy sets targets to have no more than 5% of any tree species, no more than 10% of any genus and no more than 20% of any family.

TREE PLANTING


New Trees Planting activity for next decade

Tree planting schedule

Each Urban Forest Precinct Plan contains a planting schedule which shows when urban forest planting will take place in each street over the next ten years. The schedule for planting is based on a range of factors, including community priorities shared in the local precinct workshops.

The tree planting roadmap shows when each street will be planted and what the intensity of the planting will be. In some streets, planting might be minimal due to limited opportunities for new trees, or in other cases tree planting might occur on a large scale as part of a streetscape redevelopment. The map also shows when tree planting is complete in each street.

When prioritising where to plant, it’s important to focus resources in the locations that need it most. This includes consideration of where we have opportunities to plant new trees or replacement trees, where the highest density of vulnerable people reside, which streets are the hottest in summer and where low canopy cover exists today. More detail about the factors considered to develop the planting schedule is included in each local Precinct Plan.

Open tree planting roadmap in new window

Open data

Access the Planting Schedule data via City of Melbourne's Open Data Portal      data.melbourne.vic.gov.au


PRECINCTS


Precincts Participation and plans

City of Melbourne is divided into 10 precincts, and public workshops have been held in each precinct.


Aerial view of Fitzroy Gardens

Urban forest strategies

Collins Street 1880, 1945 and 2013

Melbourne thermal imagery at night

Melbourne urban heat island

Urban details

Urban forest workshops: Carlton


Get involved: What can I do next?

Into the future


Precinct Plans


Review precinct plans on City of Melbourne website

Additional information


Visit the Urban Forest webpage




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