Tree Risk Assessment Systems - Which One? | VALID, QTRA, TRAQ

[Acer ventura]

This question comes up frequently on social media, so we've put these resources together to help you.
 

Risk Assessment Review
https://validtreerisk.help/Tree-Risk-Assessment-Review
 

Peter Gray's 2020 article in Arboriculture Australia's The Bark looks at the strengths and weaknesses of TRAQ, QTRA, and VALID.

The post in the link addresses some points Peter raises about VALID.
 

Western Springs Pines, Auckland, NZ

https://validtreerisk.help/Western-Springs-Pines

 

This high profile dispute ended up in the Environment Court.

 

It's the only case we know where TRAQ, QTRA, and VALID risk assessments were carried out on the same trees. You can download the reports.
 

If you want a geeky deep dive into what's going on with the wildly different risk ratings, have a look at Andrew Benson's report.
 

Tasmanian Government QTRA to VALID
https://validtreerisk.help/Tas-Gov-QTRA-to-VALID

 

Tasmanian Department of State Growth (DSG) - State Roads has customised and adopted VALID's Government Tree Risk-Benefit Management Strategy. They did this after a Coroner's Inquest into Brendon Smith's tragic death when a tree fell on his ute whilst he was driving on a state road during a storm. When putting together the Strategy, DSG upgraded their approach to tree risk from QTRA to VALID.

 

The head of the DSG's tree risk framework review asked us to put together a briefing note for the General Manager State Roads, to explain why they were moving from QTRA to VALID.

We thought this note was confidential, but as DSG is a Government organisation, anyone can access it with Freedom of Information request. Several times people asked whether we could make it public because there is valuable technical information in it about tree risk assessment.