GOC

Trees and cities—they can go together. That’s the sentiment behind San Francisco’s Urban Forest Mapping project, which was highlighted earlier this month during the city’s Arbor Day ceremonies. The project gained a major boost thanks to a partnership between the city’s Bureau of Urban Forestry, tree-planting advocacy organization Friends of the Urban Forest (FUF), GIS application developer Online Mapping Solutions, and open source software maker Autodesk (News - Alert).

 

Open source software? What does that have to do with planting trees? Quite a lot, as it turns out. On the Urban Forest Map Web site, it is explained that in the past San Francisco’s long-term tree-planting plans were hindered by lack of a central way to share information with both city officials and community members.

 

So, the city teamed up with FUF, Online Mapping Solutions, and Autodesk to create a Web-accessible, digital mapping system that shows where trees are planted, their condition, and other key data necessary to maintain the urban forest. This is made possible in large party by Autodesk’s MapGuide Open Source software package, which forms the backbone of the San Francisco Urban Forest Mapping System.

 

“By integrating their two data sets into one, BUF and FUF now have a vital, technology-based tool for tree maintenance and management, enabling urban forest managers to inventory and map existing, future and past tree locations,” Autodesk explained on its MapGuide Open Source site.

 

Autodesk further explained that the map additionally serves as “an online tool, allowing citizens to access tree data, report problems, upload personal tree information, such as photos and stories, and add information about privately owned trees to the city inventory.”

 

On March 10, the site was officially launched during Arbor Week activities in San Francisco. Mayor Gavin Newsom announced at the same time that, since 2004, 16,034 trees have been planted in the city.

 

The Urban Forest Mapping System Web site (screenshot show above) utilizes the mash-up concept (pulling data from multiple sources) to create a Google (News - Alert) Map-like interface showing trees planted in the city. Users can view one or more layers of data—neighborhoods, soils, water, plants—on top of the city map. The interface allows for zooming in and out, as well as searching by address, neighborhood, species, and planting data.