Soil Quality in Semi-Arid Cities: Are We Giving Urban Trees Good Enough Growth Conditions?.

Soils in urban areas have largely been overseen when developing research in urban ecology. However they are the growth environment for several plants that provide a variety of ecosystem services in urban areas. This research explores the variability of soil conditions in green spaces from two affluent communes in Santiago, Chile. We selected the communes that would have no budget constraints for managing their natural assets and therefore those soils should represent the best that can be found in Santiago. We took a random sample 0f 100 hundred points distributed in green spaces from Providencia and Vitacura. Soil samples were taken from a 20 cm depth and save in soil bags to later dry them and analyzed them for bulk density, pH, electric conductivity, carbon, and heavy metales, which are variables known as relevant for tree growth. Findings from this research can give insight for improving soil management of urban green spaces in order to maximize urban tree health.