Inventory of Street Tree Population and Diversity in the Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana

Urban greenery is an important component of urban environment and is fast gaining prominence especially in the developing countries. The destruction of urban trees has resulted to the degradation of the environment, thus the introduction of green Kumasi project by Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Ashanti Region of Ghana. The composition and diversity of urban trees gives rise to adequate management and monitoring, thus an inventory of urban trees of the Metropolis was conducted to document complete information on its density, diversity, composition and distribution. A total tree population of 1,101 was enumerated in the principal roads of the Metropolis. The ten most encountered tree species accounted for 61.04% of all the individual tree populations with Mangifera indica being dominant. The dominant families: Fabaceae, Moraceae and Arecaceae constitute 38.57% of the tree population. Diversity of the tree species was very high. The minimum diversity criteria were met on analysis of the diversity of this population. The proportion of exotic species was high with 65.71% of the trees belonging to the introduced species. It is recommended that greater emphasis should be placed on the planting of indigenous trees in future tree planting exercise.