Conclusion

Hopefully this portfolio do not bore you.

Fungi are not necessarily bad things. Although they may adversely affect the structural integrity of trees, they played an important role in the ecosystem by decomposing wood. While decay caused by fungal invasion is almost unavoidable, fungi identification and understanding their behaviour are of prior importance. Culture value of individual trees are also always noteworthy. We have seemed how public sentiment altered the management strategy from tree removal to tree preservation.

Three common trees species with different defects were also studied. Trees have different tree forms and acquire different growing condition. The very same defect may pose different level of threats in different tree species. Thus different abatement measures shall be adapted. Therefore it is important to understand the behaviours of different tree species, especially local species that are widely distributed. Also pay attention to the surrounding area. The location where the tree is planted may have great impact on the fate of the tree. We have seemed how some of the trees survived through Typhoon Mangkhut.

Visual assessments are bounded to the appearance of trees. With the use of industrial diagnostic tools, we are able to detect tree decay even there is no external symptoms on trees. While we are expecting more advance tree defect detection systems will be developed, we should aware the practical limitations of these tools. Either over-dependent on these tools or misinterpreting the results may lead to great deviation from actual facts.

Impact of wind are mentioned in the portfolio for a number of times. The fact is we know little on how the limbs interact with the strength of wind. Arborist can identify the defects and abate the risk by reducing the wind sailing area. However the likelihood of tree failure cannot be quantified. It is in hope that future research could categorise how wind speeds and directions interact with different tree species, as well as formation of wind-related defects