By Dan Buckler, DNR Urban Forest Assessment Specialist
Daniel.Buckler@wisconsin.gov or 608-445-4578

We are pleased to offer a new resource to communities to help assess, celebrate and share information about your community’s trees and the benefits they provide.

For the 165 communities that we have inventory data on (those communities within the Wisconsin Community Tree Map), we have created summary sheets like the sample shown below. These offer a quick snapshot of your community’s species and structural diversity, canopy cover and the i-Tree derived ecosystem services for both the publicly maintained trees as well as those of the whole community.

A forest summary sheet for the City of Rhinelander that describes tree and forest characteristics and the benefits that trees provide to the community.

These are not currently downloadable on the DNR website, but they are available for cities, villages and towns with an inventory in the tree map. If you’d like one of these summary sheets, email your request to Daniel.Buckler@wisconsin.gov.

Please use these to better understand and communicate your community trees and share with stakeholders who might benefit from the (hopefully) digestible, one-stop-shop format.

A few notes and responses to anticipated questions about the documents:

• You cannot necessarily compare one community’s trees to another because their scopes may differ. For example, one community’s inventory may document only street trees while another may include park trees as well.
• We used the inventory data that had been shared with us over the past few years. The trees you currently (April 2026) manage may present slightly different numbers.
• I incorporated a new TD-50 metric to assess a community’s species diversity. See this article for more information.
• For an explanation of what the ecosystem services / benefits mean, check out this rundown.

Again, please email Daniel.Buckler@wisconsin.gov if you’d like to be sent the summary sheet for your community!