The planting of trees in streets and parks is critical for urban greening efforts that seek to improve climate-change resilience in cities around the world. Ecosystem services provided by urban trees range from mitigating urban heat island effects to enhancing human well-being and conserving native biodiversity. At the same time, such tree services trade off with disservices that include risk to human safety from falling branches and infrastructure damage from root growth. Here, we performed a survey of residents of a sub-tropical region in eastern Australia to determine community perceptions of the ecosystem services and disservices linked to urban tree plantings. Our aim was to better understand the diverse perceptions of the community, prior to on-the-ground implementation of urban greening, to help guide planting programs in streets and parklands that are vulnerable to UHI effects in the region. We found strong evidence for a high level of public awareness about the beneficial ecosystem services that urban trees can provide. A broad spectrum of beneficial tree services were valued highly by the community in their urban environment including the planting of native trees that can attract and provide food for preferred wildlife; provide shade and reduce heat; allow for a strong connection with nature; have the potential to store carbon to mitigate climate change; provide a level of protection from bushfires; have aesthetically pleasing properties; and produce food for people. At the same time, however, community concerns about tree disservices were concentrated primarily on root damage to infrastructure as well as property damage and injury from falling branches. Our elicitation of community attitudes to tree services and disservices will allow for residents’ most important values and strongest concerns about trees to be explicitly taken into account when establishing a community-inclusive approach to urban tree planting.

在街道和公园植树对于旨在提高世界各地城市气候变化适应能力的城市绿化工作至关重要。城市树木提供的生态系统服务范围从缓解城市热岛效应到提高人类福祉和保护本土生物多样性。与此同时，这种树木服务与损害相权衡，包括树枝掉落对人类安全的风险和根部生长对基础设施的破坏。在这里，我们对澳大利亚东部亚热带地区的居民进行了一项调查，以确定社区对与城市植树相关的生态系统服务和损害的看法。我们的目标是在实地实施城市绿化之前，更好地了解社区的不同看法，帮助指导该地区易受 UHI 影响的街道和公园的种植计划。我们发现了强有力的证据，表明公众对城市树木可以提供的有益生态系统服务有很高的认识。社区在其城市环境中高度重视范围广泛的有益树木服务，包括种植能够吸引首选野生动物并为其提供食物的本地树木；提供遮荫和减少热量；与自然建立紧密联系；具有储存碳以减缓气候变化的潜力；提供一定程度的丛林大火保护；具有美观的特性；为人们生产粮食。然而与此同时，社区对树木危害的担忧主要集中在基础设施的根部损坏以及树枝掉落造成的财产损失和伤害上。我们通过了解社区对树木服务和损害的态度，可以在建立社区包容性城市植树方法时明确考虑居民对树木最重要的价值观和最强烈的担忧。