From perception to preparedness: | Cultura REPublic

How TREESURE turns local evidence into shared risk governance

Before designing, TREESURE started by listening

Before a tool is built, a simpler question often needs to be asked: what does a city already know about the risk it is trying to manage?

In Cecina, Soria and Brasov, TREESURE started from that question. The project did not move directly from technical ambition to prototype. It first looked at how urban tree-related risk is currently understood, communicated and managed by local actors: municipal services, technical practitioners, civil protection actors, community representatives and citizens.

This matters because tree-related risk is never only about a tree. During hazardous events, a damaged branch, a fallen tree or an inaccessible road may affect mobility, emergency access, public confidence, institutional communication and the way responsibilities are interpreted. A technical assessment can identify relevant conditions and possible failure scenarios. It cannot, by itself, explain how people coordinate under pressure, which information they trust, or how decisions are made when time and resources are limited.

A risk that becomes public

Urban and peri-urban trees are part of the everyday life of cities. They provide shade, comfort, biodiversity, landscape value and a sense of place. At the same time, in specific conditions, they may become part of complex risk situations. This dual role is one reason why urban tree-related risk requires careful governance: the issue is not simply whether trees are valuable or dangerous, but how their benefits, vulnerabilities, maintenance needs and possible impacts are understood in context.

In the language of risk, it is not the trees that are “exposed”. People, public spaces, roads, buildings, services and other assets may be exposed to tree-related hazards. This distinction is important. It helps avoid a simplistic narrative in which trees are treated only as threats, and it keeps attention on the relationship between hazard, exposure, vulnerability, capacity and public decision-making.

For TREESURE, this means that better tools must be connected to better understanding. A decision-support system, a monitoring process or a local guideline will be useful only if it fits the real conditions in which decisions are made: who needs information, when they need it, how they interpret it, and which responsibilities it supports.

From local evidence to a shared setting

The first step was Task 2.1: a structured user-needs analysis combining local policy review, public perception evidence, stakeholder interviews and stakeholder mapping. Each source answered a different question. Policy review showed what is formally defined. Public perception evidence showed how residents understand risk and communication. Interviews helped identify operational practices and coordination challenges. Stakeholder mapping made visible the actors involved and the relationships between them.

Together, these sources helped TREESURE identify a recurring gap: formal responsibilities may exist on paper, but they do not automatically become coordinated practice. Local actors often know their own role, but the connections between roles, institutions and communication channels can remain unclear until a specific event forces them into view.

This is where the tabletop-based engagement process becomes relevant. In Task 2.5, evidence from the listening phase was translated into a structured participatory setting: maps, roles, incidents, resources, action choices and debrief questions. This translation was developed within TREESURE in cooperation with the game-design contribution of AIJU, while CREP’s role focused on the methodological chain: preparing evidence, framing stakeholder engagement, facilitating discussion, observing decision-making and interpreting qualitative outputs.

What happens around the table

Around a table, risk becomes concrete. Participants are not only asked what they think about risk. They are asked to decide what they would do in a specific situation. They must interpret information, respond to incidents, allocate limited resources, discuss with others and explain why certain actions should come before others.

This changes the quality of the discussion. A survey can reveal perceptions. An interview can reveal professional experience. A policy review can reveal formal responsibilities. A facilitated tabletop session can reveal how these elements interact when people need to act together.

The value of the method is not that it produces a perfect answer. Its value is that it helps make decision-making visible. It shows where assumptions diverge, where roles are unclear, where information is missing, where communication becomes fragile and where prevention needs to be brought back into the conversation before the next hazardous event occurs.

What TREESURE is learning

Across the case-study areas, several lessons are becoming clear. First, safety remains central, but it cannot be separated from exposure, communication and operational feasibility. Participants often need to consider not only where a hazardous situation may occur, but who could be affected, which routes or services could be disrupted and what information should be shared.

Second, coordination matters as much as individual action. Tree-related risk involves municipalities, technical services, emergency responders, local communities and, in some cases, private actors. Even when responsibilities exist formally, they still need to be understood, communicated and tested in practice.

Third, communication is not a final step after a technical decision. It is part of risk-governance infrastructure. Clear and trusted communication can reduce uncertainty and support coordination. Incomplete or inconsistent communication can increase confusion, especially when incidents occur or when public concern is already high.

Fourth, prevention needs explicit space. When a scenario creates urgency, the discussion naturally moves toward immediate response. The tabletop process helps bring participants back to longer-term questions: what could have reduced the problem before the event? What should be improved afterwards? Which routines, data, skills or relationships need to be strengthened?

Local knowledge as usable evidence

One of the strongest contributions of the process is the role of local knowledge. Participants bring memories of past events, awareness of sensitive areas, knowledge of how people use streets and parks, and experience of how institutions communicate. This knowledge is not a substitute for technical assessment. It should not be treated as a certified risk map or as evidence of tree condition.

But it is still valuable. It helps identify where technical data need to be explained, where governance needs to be clarified and where prevention measures may be more effective if they are discussed with the people and organisations that live the territory every day.

For this reason, the maps, notes and debriefs produced during the sessions should be read as participatory evidence. They show perceptions, priorities, reasoning and concerns. When cross-referenced with technical data and local policies, they can help improve co-creation processes and make future decision-support tools more responsive to real user needs.

A method, not just an event

The tabletop activity should not be understood only as a workshop or a game session. Its value lies in the full methodological chain: preparing evidence, translating it into scenarios, facilitating discussion, observing decision-making, collecting qualitative outputs, comparing cases and transforming lessons into co-creation and policy-oriented inputs.

This distinction is important for TREESURE. A single event can engage participants for a few hours. A method can help a project learn from that engagement, document what emerged and use the results responsibly in the next phases. For CREP, this is the central contribution: not the ownership of game materials, but the design and interpretation of a participatory process that connects research, local engagement and public value.

In this sense, TREESURE’s tabletop-based engagement is not an accessory to technical development. It is part of the knowledge chain. It helps bridge the gap between user-needs analysis, co-creation, local monitoring hubs, decision-support tools and future policy-oriented outputs.

From better tools to shared governance

The main lesson is simple but important: resilient cities are not built only through better data or better technologies. They are also built through shared understanding. Local actors need spaces where they can test assumptions, recognise constraints, clarify responsibilities and learn from each other before real pressure makes coordination more difficult.

TREESURE is developing tools and processes to support risk evaluation, management and awareness of tree-failure disasters. For those tools to be useful, they need to fit the practices, constraints and expectations of the people who will use them. This is why the project moves from listening to simulation, and from simulation to lessons.

Preparedness begins before the emergency. It begins when a city understands not only what may happen, but how people, institutions and communities are likely to respond together.

Selected scientific references / Further reading

This web article is written for communication purposes. The following references informed the framing and are included as a light scientific source base for editors, partners and readers who want to trace the conceptual background.

• International Risk Governance Council (IRGC). (2017). Introduction to the IRGC Risk Governance Framework: revised version. IRGC / EPFL. https://irgc.org/risk-governance/irgc-risk-governance-framework/
• Kabisch, N., Frantzeskaki, N., Pauleit, S., Naumann, S., Davis, M., Artmann, M., Haase, D., Knapp, S., Korn, H., Stadler, J., Zaunberger, K., & Bonn, A. (2016). Nature-based solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban areas: Perspectives on indicators, knowledge gaps, barriers, and opportunities for action. Ecology and Society, 21(2), 39. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08373-210239
• Mayer, I. S. (2009). The gaming of policy and the politics of gaming: A review. Simulation & Gaming, 40(6), 825-862. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878109346456
• Reed, M. S., Vella, S., Challies, E., de Vente, J., Frewer, L., Hohenwallner-Ries, D., Huber, T., Neumann, R. K., Oughton, E. A., Sidoli del Ceno, J., & van Delden, H. (2018). A theory of participation: What makes stakeholder and public engagement in environmental management work? Restoration Ecology, 26(S1), S7-S17. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.12541
• Renn, O. (2008). Risk Governance: Coping with Uncertainty in a Complex World. Earthscan / Routledge.
• Rumore, D., Schenk, T., & Susskind, L. (2016). Role-play simulations for climate change adaptation education and engagement. Nature Climate Change, 6, 745-750. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3084
• Salmond, J. A., Tadaki, M., Vardoulakis, S., Arbuthnott, K., Coutts, A., Demuzere, M., Dirks, K. N., Heaviside, C., Lim, S., Macintyre, H., McInnes, R. N., & Wheeler, B. W. (2016). Health and climate related ecosystem services provided by street trees in the urban environment. Environmental Health, 15(Suppl 1), 36. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-016-0103-6