TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Most cities in Taiwan have too few tree inspectors and too many trees, and a lack of control mechanisms or standard operating procedures (SOP), experts said.
They said current inspections of roadside trees in most municipalities are superficial and lack advanced instruments to detect the structure of tree trunks, making it difficult to analyze the health of trees and putting the public at risk. This led some arborists to believe that most roadside tree inspections are cursory looks and serve no real purpose, per UDN.
Several counties and cities have purchased extra accident liability insurance for roadside trees. While this speeds up accident compensation, it also allows competent authorities to shirk responsibilities in caring for trees.
In Taipei City, there are about 92,000 trees managed by the city, according to Taipei City Parks and Street Lights Office landscape engineering team leader Lin Chao-chia (林晁嘉). Lin said routine inspections are conducted monthly, though only 12 inspectors are employed by the city and another 12 are outsourced to a subcontractor. This means an average of 174 trees are inspected per person per day.
Lin said that the annual maintenance cost of street trees in Taipei City was about NT$130 million (US$4.145 million), with existing manpower insufficient. In the future, outsourced inspections will be expanded to observe whether brown root rot disease is present.
On average, Lin said inspections take about five to 10 minutes per tree, with inspectors carrying only a small shovel. If any abnormality is found, further instrumentation will be requested.
As for Taichung City, all of the city’s 220,000 roadside trees are outsourced to subcontractors for inspection and maintenance, with 19 inspectors from the construction bureau responsible for supervision. Typically, about five minutes of visual observation is given to each tree, with inspectors taking photos and documenting obvious defects.
In Tainan City, the municipal public works bureau cooperates with various district offices to inspect roadside trees. In addition to routine inspections, risk assessments are outsourced to professional arborist teams.
Kaohsiung City Parks Office Director Wang Miaw-jen (王妙珍) said that there are about 170,000 roadside trees in the city, which are covered by public accident insurance, but there are no dedicated inspectors.
Taoyuan City also does not have regular tree inspectors or an SOP for inspecting roadside trees. Taoyuan City said limited funds have curtailed such inspections.
The visual inspection of trees costs NT$200, while instrument-based inspection costs NT$2,000.
