Moreland City Council

Cities around the world are embracing stormwater control measures (SCMs) to reduce the environmental damage caused by impervious runoff. At the same time, there is a push to increase tree canopy cover to green neighborhoods and mitigate urban heat. Establishing SCMs that include trees may achieve these two objectives, but it is important to understand which design characteristics promote or reduce tree health and growth. We therefore undertook an 18-month streetscape experiment comparing four tree pit SCM designs, along with a control (non-SCM) street tree planting, to identify design characteristics influencing the water balance and growth of newly planted trees (Acer campestre (L.)) in an established urban area dominated by clay soils. Trees in pits with an underdrain showed double the growth of conventionally planted street trees receiving no stormwater. However, the low exfiltration rates of some non-drained tree pits resulted in some tree pits experiencing waterlogging and subsequent poor tree growth or even death. In other non-drained tree pits, the heterogeneity of urban soils resulted in sufficiently high exfiltration rates to avoid waterlogging and promote increased tree growth, even in these heavy clay soils. Our results suggest that establishing tree growth can be substantially increased by directing stormwater into tree pits, however, waterlogging conditions should be avoided via an underdrain or limiting installation to soils with a sufficiently high exfiltration rate.

Compact city policies such as Melbourne 2030 have been established in Australia for a range of reasons including climate change. It is now clear that the Melbourne 2030 policy has not been effective—with new development mostly on the urban fringe. This policy failure has often been sheeted home to resident and local government resistance to densification. This article suggests this narrative is insufficient to explain this failure at a metropolitan-wide scale and is clearly mistaken in one suburb, where aspects of the planning system appear to thwart the aims of strategic policy by encouraging speculation and producing vacant sites. Brunswick is an inner-city suburb with good opportunities for intensification adjacent to transit lines and on former industrial sites. In spite of resident resistance, 80 per cent of new dwellings proposed between 2002 and 2007 were approved for construction, and would have increased housing stock by 13 per cent. However, by 2009 just under half of all approved dwellings had been completed or commenced on site, while construction of the taller and higher density projects tended to stall, the sites having been on-sold and permits extended. We suggest developers anticipate that the planning system will ultimately approve significant increases in height and density, using Melbourne 2030 to over-ride local policy via appeals to the Planning Tribunal. Such permits produce significant capital gains that can be cashed without construction. We argue that elements of the Victorian planning system encourage ambit claims, contestation, cynicism and speculation, thwarting negotiations between residents, councils and developers towards a more compact city. The focus on the idea that resident resistance is the problem obscures the role the planning system itself plays in frustrating the goals of compact city policy.

Abstract Experimentally manipulating urban tree abundance and structure can help explore the complex and reciprocal interactions among people, biodiversity and the services urban forests provide to humans and wildlife. In this study we take advantage of scheduled urban tree removals to experimentally quantify the benefits that urban trees provide to humans and wildlife. Specifically, we aim to understand how trees affect: (1) bird and mammal abundance and diversity, as well as an ecological process (predation); and (2) people's perception responses, such as the importance that people assign to the trees, wildlife and the site. We designed two independent Before‐after‐control‐impact (BACI) experiments based on two sites where tree removals were occurring (impact sites): an urban park and a residential street, both located in the Greater Melbourne Area, Australia. We selected three control sites for each impact site, or four per experiment. Ecological data were collected through field surveys, and social data on people's perceptions through intercept questionnaires among park and street users. Data were analysed using a GLMMs to determine the combined effect of time (before and after) and treatment (impact and controls). At the urban park, the abundance of nectarivorous birds and possums both declined by 62% following tree removal, while invertebrate predation increased by 82.1%. The level of importance people assigned to the urban park and to the trees at the site decreased after tree removal, and people's attitudes towards tree planting became more positive, meaning more people wanted to plant more trees at the site. None of these changes were observed in the street experiment where fewer and smaller trees were removed, suggesting that effects may be highly specific to context, where factors such as tree volume, diversity and arrangement influence the magnitude of social–ecological effects observed. By demonstrating the social–ecological effect of removing urban trees, we provide evidence that urban trees provide critical habitat to urban wildlife and are perceived as an important aspect of the human experience of urban nature. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

As keystone structures in urban ecosystems, trees are critical to addressing many of the current livability, health, and environmental challenges facing cities. Every day, trees are removed from urban landscapes as part of routine management. These tree removals are an opportunity for implementing manipulative experiments to directly measure the social and ecological functions of trees. Here we review the kinds of tree removals that commonly occur in cities, assess the relevant opportunities that arise for research–practice partnerships, and discuss the challenges posed when implementing experiments of this nature. We argue that experimental studies on the routine removal of urban trees will improve and expand the mechanistic understanding of how trees support biodiversity and human well‐being in cities beyond current knowledge, which is largely based on correlative studies. Finally, we highlight the opportunity for experiments to be co‐designed by scientists and urban land managers, and how “learning while doing” can generate tangible research impacts and improve urban forest decision making.

PROBLEM: The COVID-19 pandemic affected perinatal outcomes globally, with some regions reporting an increase in stillbirths. BACKGROUND: Melbourne, Australia, experienced one of the longest and most stringent pandemic lockdowns. AIM: To compare stillbirth rates for singleton pregnancies > 20 weeks' gestation before and during the pandemic and examine differences in suboptimal care factors. METHODS: January 2018 to December 2021 data on singleton births ≥ 20 weeks in Victoria were extracted and linked to stillbirths in the Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity database. Statistical comparisons of patient characteristics, pregnancy outcomes, and suboptimal care factors were performed between the pre-pandemic period (2018-19) and the pandemic years (2020, 2021). RESULTS: Among 302,528 singleton births, 2244 stillbirths were recorded. The stillbirth rate was higher in the first pandemic year (0.81 %) compared with pre-pandemic years (0.73 %) and the second pandemic year (0.70 %) (p = 0.04). No stillbirths were directly attributable to maternal COVID-19 infection. The proportion of stillbirths with suboptimal care factors was similar across periods (p > 0.05). 'Barriers to engaging care' increased in frequency as a contributing factor (p < 0.001). 'Organizational factors' were more common in 2020 (p < 0.001), while suboptimal care related to healthcare personnel was less common in 2021 (p < 0.001). Disadvantaged and non-Australian-born women were more likely to experience suboptimal care. DISCUSSION: Significant fluctuations in stillbirth rates were observed during the pandemic, with a temporary rise in 2020. Barriers to accessing care were a notable factor. CONCLUSION: Embedding woman-centred care to address structural inequities is essential for supporting families and creating a just health system.

This report presents the ‘pre-greening’ findings for Sheils Reserve for Moreland City Council. It provides an overview of how residents living close to Sheils Reserve perceived and used the Reserve and nearby Moonee Ponds Creek before greening improvements were undertaken. These findings will be compared with the outcomes from ‘post-greening actions’ interviews to be conducted after planned improvements have been implemented at the Reserve. The aim of the pre- and post- qualitative design is to understand how the new, improved greenspace will impact local residents’ perceptions and uses of the Reserve and surrounding spaces, and includes outcomes relating to connection with place or nature, and health and wellbeing.

This study explores optimal nitrogen (N) application rates for sustainable rice production in central Myanmar, by integrating recent research with additional economic and environmental analyses. Results indicate limited yield responses to applied N in monsoon rice, but significant gains—from ~4 to 8 t·ha⁻¹—are achievable in dry-season irrigated rice, mainly due to higher solar radiation during the dry season. For monsoon-season rice, the economically optimal N rates were found to be 82.8 kg·N·ha⁻¹ with the maximum net economic benefit (NEB) at 617 US<inline-formula><tex-math id="Z-20251027150518">\begin{document}${\$} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>·ha⁻¹. For dry-season irrigated rice, higher N rates were recommended, with the economically optimal N rates at 202 kg·N·ha⁻¹ and the maximum NEB at 661 US<inline-formula><tex-math id="Z-20251019183927">\begin{document}${\$}$\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>·ha⁻¹. However, high fertilizer N inputs on rice in Myanmar have been shown to increase native soil N extraction in rice paddies and negatively affect microbial N retention, as well as the promotion of Nr losses (Nr: all species of N except N₂). If we incorporate the social costs of Nr losses into the cost-benefit analysis, the ecological optimal N rates were found to be 66 kg·N·ha⁻¹ for monsoon season rice, and 48.2 kg·N·ha⁻¹ for dry-season irrigated rice. The adoption of ecologically optimal N rates could avoid social pollution costs of US<inline-formula><tex-math id="Z-20251019183841">\begin{document}${\$} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>55 and US<inline-formula><tex-math id="Z-20251019183851">\begin{document}${\$} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>368 per hectare annually, compared to the current farming practices and economically optimal N rates, with benefits that outweigh the marginal drop in net economic returns. Farmer engagement revealed a preference for co-developing tailored fertilizer strategies with peers, extension agents, and researchers via interactive platforms (e.g., Facebook). This participatory model may be extended to similar contexts in Cambodia and Lao PDR.

Previous research in Melbourne has suggested that informal practices of hard rubbish reuse (or 'gleaning') by households may significantly decrease the amount of landfill. Despite this, many municipal councils throughout Melbourne have sought to make gleaning illegal. Those councils, such as Moreland, that have supported personal gleaning, have expressed concerns around managing issues of dumping and 'professional' gleaning. This qualitative study of 15 households in the Moreland Council region aimed to provide more in-depth knowledge of why and how people glean. Building on previous work on the political economy of hard rubbish, we saw a need for a more culturall-inflected understanding of this lifestyle practice in relation to wider consumption practices, cultural perspectives on commodities, and perceived changing norms and values around responsibility and ownership, 'waste' and value, and environmental or ethical consumption. By providing a more complex understanding of the culture and practices of gleaning our concern has been to locate the potential 'place' and role of gleaning activities, particularly for domestic reuse, within councils and communities and indicate the social, economic, and other implications and potential limitations of current strategies and policies to manage and control hard rubbish reuse. The study reveals the practice of gleaning as characterised by, and as allowing, the expression of positive values associated with not-wasting, caring for others, and social responsibility. What the study found was that it fosters a sense of connection across generations and with the wider community. Interviewees associated the opposite values of wastefulness, selfishness, and social isolation with mainstream consumerism; gleaning is explicitly characterised by study participants as an active and performative rejection of this. The report concludes, in light of these study findings, with a list of recommendations for Moreland City Council.