tree risk assessments
tree risk assessments utilising industry best practices.
QTRA
Tree safety management is a matter of limiting the risk of harm from tree failure while maintaining the benefits conferred by trees. Although it may seem counterintuitive, the condition of trees should not be the first consideration. Instead, tree managers should consider first the usage of the land on which the trees stand, and in turn, this will inform the process of assessing the trees.
The Quantified Tree Risk Assessment (QTRA) method, developed by Mike Ellison at Cheshire Woodlands, applies established and accepted risk management principles to tree safety. The method moves the management of tree safety away from labelling trees as either ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ and thereby away from requiring definitive judgements from either tree assessors or tree managers. Instead, QTRA quantifies the risk of harm from tree failure in a way that enables tree managers to balance safety with tree values and operate to predetermined limits of tolerable or acceptable risk.
By quantifying the risk from tree failure, QTRA enables a tree owner to manage the risk in accordance with widely applied and internationally recognised levels of risk tolerance. QTRA further provides a decision-making framework which considers the balance between the benefits provided by trees, levels of risk they pose, and costs of risk management.
VALID
Whether you're a Government Agency, Landowner, or Homeowner you have a duty of care to manage the risk from your trees falling or dropping branches. To fulfil your duty, you should be reasonable, proportionate, and reasonably practicable about managing the risk to an Acceptable or Tolerable level.
VALID's got your back here with our full range of ISO 31000 compliant and common sense Tree Risk-Benefit Management Strategies. As part of our not-for-profit goals, we've released all the strategies under a creative commons license. That means they're free and open to everyone. Validators can help you customise your strategy. Or, they have their Validator Strategy that covers you and them.
VALID has applied 'ISO 31000 - Risk Management' and the 'Tolerability of Risk Framework' (ToR) to tree risk-benefit management and assessment, which we've adopted. In ISO risk terms, our 'objectives' are to grow, maintain, and conserve trees because of the many benefits they give us we need. And, to manage the risk from tree failure to an Acceptable or Tolerable level. We have four easy-to- understand traffic light coloured risk ratings to show how we'll manage the risk.
