A Survey on Safety Among Tree-Climber Professional Arborists

Rope-based access methods (tree-climbing) are a bunch of techniques to ascend and operate on tree canopies. In urban forestry, climbing treesby ropes is often the only solution to care for and maintain them. Since the treeclimbingis a work at height often associated to the use of dangerous tools, andtiresome gathering information on safety and health issues and risks which mayundermine tree-climbing workers is particularly important to develop targetedinterventions to enhance their safety. This paper reports the results of a studyabout worker's risks associated with this technique and on the knowledge andawareness of safety aspects. A questionnaire including 48 questions was submittedto a group of 86 Italian professional climbing arborists. The results of thesurvey allowed to consider several aspects of the safety of tree-climbing activitypointing out the critical areas where safety interventions are most required.Among others, lack of training and near-misses appear to be significant factorsassociated with serious accidents occurred during the work activity of treeclimbers.