Services / Tree risk assessment
Specialist service
Know which trees present a real risk.
If you own or manage trees, you carry a duty of care for them and the potential targets that surround them. A defensible risk assessment tells you which trees need action, which can be left alone, and puts a method behind each call, so the decision can be relied on if a tree fails or a claim follows.
Why it matters
A duty of care you can demonstrate
Owners and managers of trees carry a duty of care to the people and property around them. Whether you are a Council, a body corporate or a facilities manager, the law does not ask you to make every tree safe. It asks for reasonable, methodical management of foreseeable risk. After a failure, the question is rarely whether a tree fell. It is whether you assessed it properly and acted on what you found.
A risk rating is only worth having if it is defensible. We only use recognised methods that are within the Minimum Industry Standards (MIS), such as QTRA and TRAQ, so a rating rests on a documented process rather than a feeling or an ‘in-house’ risk assessment system, with a re-inspection interval set to the risk rather than a default of twelve months for everything.
Independence is the Key: we assess, we do not sell you the works. Arbor Survey is a consulting firm, not a tree-works contractor, so a recommendation to remove or prune is never a pitch to hire us for the cutting. The rating is the product, not the first step in generating work.
How it works
Four steps to a defensible rating
Risk only means something against what sits or passes below or near the tree. We set the targets first, inspect properly, rate with a recognised method, and hand back a program you can act on.
Setting the brief
Scope and targets
What trees, how the ground beneath them is used, and how often. Risk is always risk to something: a car park, a playground and a back paddock are not the same exposure, and the assessment has to start there.
On site
Inspection
A ground-based assessment of each tree, with a closer look where the tree or the target warrants it: an aerial inspection into the canopy, or decay testing at the base. We look at the parts that fail, not just the parts that show.
The method
Rating the risk
Each tree is rated using a recognised system (i.e., QTRA or TRAQ), chosen to suit the matter, so that the likelihood of failure, the target, and the consequences are weighed consistently every time, and the result can be compared tree to tree.
What you do with it
Action and review
The trees that need work, the work that is proportionate to the risk, and a re-inspection interval set to each tree rather than the whole site. A program you can hand to a contractor and show to an insurer.
Why our work can be relied on
A rating that can be explained if questioned
A risk assessment proves its value on the day it is challenged by an insurer, a lawyer, or a coroner.
Defensible method
QTRA and TRAQ are recognised, documented methods. The rating shows its working, which is what matters if it is ever questioned after a failure.
No tree work to sell
We are consultants, not a tree-works contractor. There is nothing for us to sell on the back of a removal call, so the rating is the evidence-based one.
It can be relied on if challenged
The same assessment that guides your program is the one that answers an insurer or a court. Our evidence has stood up at VCAT. See the record.
Related services
Often needed alongside
Responsible for trees you are not sure about?
Tell us what you manage and what is worrying you. We will set out how we would assess it and what a defensible program looks like.
Discuss your trees