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 trees by ropes is often the only solution to care for and maintain them. Since the treeclimbing is a work at height often associated to the use of dangerous tools, and tiresome gathering information on safety and health issues and risks which may undermine tree-climbing workers is particularly important to develop targeted interventions to enhance their safety. This paper reports the results of a study about worker's risks associated with this technique and on the knowledge and awareness of safety aspects. A questionnaire including 48 questions was submitted to a group of 86 Italian professional climbing arborists. The results of the survey allowed to consider several aspects of the safety of tree-climbing activity pointing out the critical areas where safety interventions are most required. Among others, lack of training and near-misses appear to be significant factors associated with serious accidents occurred during the work activity of treeclimbers.