Justin Morgenroth

The kids climb was popular with my little ones.

Spent the afternoon at the #itcc #isa tree climbing competition in Hagley park. Incredible vibe and athleticism from the world's best arborists in town ahead of the international society of arboriculture conference.

Is it silly to think that New Zealand's science funding changes may yield too much influence to one person?

newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/16/f...

Wow, what a setup. I'm guessing the tower is for much more than line of sight flying. What other instrumentation have you got on the tower?

Great work! That author list is like a bluesky starter pack!

Today #ucnz is hosting careers advisors from across the country and my research group is telling them all about how we use remote sensing to measure and monitor forests. We use drones equipped with laser scanners, multispectral sensors, and thermal sensors to understand forest dynamics.

My university, #ucnz, is putting on a series of really interesting talks at this annual Raising the Bar event. Grab a coffee, pint, wine, or cocktail at your local and hear 20 leading academics talk about AI, penguins, space tourism, and more. www.rtbevent.com/rtbchch2025

Filling streets with trees Communities worldwide are planting trees. In New Zealand. Hāwera has 7.5% tree canopy, Picton has nearly 59%. The average across all NZ towns and cities is 19%.

Had a really nice chat with Mihingarangi Forbes this morning on RNZ about NZ's urban forests and the importance of trees and greenspaces for wellbeing. www.rnz.co.nz/national/pro...

Prof. Coops organises quickfire and long form research talks, tech tips, coding sessions, mental health workshops, career retrospective panels, a quiz night, and a movie night for his graduate students and guests. All that plus ample time in the lake, good food and drinks, and lots of laughter.

I was so lucky to spend a week with the @irssubc.bsky.social on their annual research retreat on Vancouver Island. They're such a fun, smart, and inspiring group.

Holy Li-Cor Batman!

What's the collective noun for a group of Li-Cor 6800?

PhD student submits his thesis

One of the best parts of my job...getting to congratulate my PhD students on submitting their thesis after years of hard work. Congrats to Joe Zhao (not on bsky) on his amazing work using deep learning for tree crown delineation and species detection in cities.

Congrats, one of my PhD students is doing similar work in New Zealand. Would be keen to set up a chat between to exchange tips.

Always be pollinating

The Seafair story goes in the canon. I died when you said "I notice we haven't got an update on how your daughter's doing in a while". John wrapping up the story with "I grab two roast beef sandwiches off of a platter" also almost did me in. Classic RoTL guided storytelling.

For the local Christchurch folks, our tree cover target is 20% by 2070...an increase from the current 13.5%. It's a well thought out target that is achievable, but will need consistent resource allocation for new planting and maintenance/protection of existing trees.

with some cities aiming to increase cover by less than 1% and others hoping to roughly triple their canopy.

Many of the surveyed cities may never reach their tree canopy targets. We propose a more considered approach to setting appropriate and achievable canopy cover targets.

Many cities have tree cover targets, used to support an increase in canopy and the benefits trees provide. But how are those targets set? Are they rational, aspirational, delusional? Our study of 57 cities worldwide found evidence off all three...

authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

#urbanforests

5...it's not as simple as development leads to tree loss, so development = bad.
6. This study provides important insights for cities with the simultaneous goals of increasing housing through intensification and also increasing urban tree canopy for the benefits it provides.

3...when considered relative to the additional housing created, infill was the worst form of intensification, with tree loss per new residential unit being higher than other forms of intensification
4. the majority of city-wide canopy loss occurs on properties that are not redeveloped
5. So...

As promised, here's the first trees and cities manuscript. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S.... Here's what we learned:

1. Residential intensification contributes to loss of tree canopy.
2. Residential infill leads to less tree cover loss than other forms of intensification.
3. But...

What a journey!

Two manuscripts accepted for publication today. Surprised? You bet. Hope you people like science about trees and cities.

We've had similar below inflation pay increases at NZ universities for many years. #Solidarity.

Thrilled that our urban tree cover work is leading to meaningful change. We provided 75 cities in NZ with an estimate of their tree cover and just a week later one town is looking at changing their Tree Policy to increase its canopy cover.

www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/3607...

Setting a canopy cover goal without considering other measures of urban forest quality is a mistake. But the 'just a number' part remains important as it's what politicians and decision makers tend to connect with most easily.

The point of the overall project was to give 75 cities across NZ a baseline. Seems simple, but most of those 75 cities don't have any data about their urban forests other than how much it costs to maintain them. This baseline canopy cover data is a starting point for those communities.

Nice write-up by Will Harvie summarising the tree cover in Canterbury cities and towns. www.thepress.co.nz/environment/...

Thanks Tim!

No plans yet, but would be happy to chat with local authorities if they got in touch.