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I've seen several of these maps (they are available for most large German cities) and i always ask myself what the value proposition and applications for such m

I've seen several of these maps (they are available for most large German cities) and i always ask myself what the value proposition and applications for such maps are. It seems like they take large resources (e.g. manual collection of the data) to create.

xiaq 6y ago
AFAIK in London the data are extracted from the archives of the local councils that planted the trees in the first place and were responsible for maintenance afterwards. I can imagine a best-case scenario is that they already have maps of the borough where they mark all the trees, and it's a matter of digitializing those maps and combining them. It still takes time to combine all these data, presumably, but there were some useful studies on the ecologicical effects of different types of trees that came out of these data.
Someone 6y ago
I would think cities already have the data, as they have to do safety inspections on their trees, take them into account when doing street renovations, report on the ‘greenness’ of the city, etc. Opening up the data isn’t that costly, and fits “Open Data” policies. Apps around this often are third party.
petr_tik 6y ago
Since leafy surroundings and tree presence is one of the selling points for good properties, it would be great to align incentives of real estate agencies and such data collection efforts
m-i-l 6y ago
> "i always ask myself what the value proposition and applications for such maps are. It seems like they take large resources (e.g. manual collection of the data) to create" There was a survey a few years back to assess the economic value of the trees in London, for pollution removal, stormwater alleviation, etc. which put the total annual benefits at £132.7M[0]. [0] https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/valuing_londons_urban_forest_i-tree_report_final.pdf https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/valuing_london...
stevage 6y ago
The map is generally a pretty cheap by-product of two much more expensive processes: planting trees, and maintaining trees. To do any kind of long term strategic management of the assets (trees) generally requires knowing what you have, which means a tree survey. That's kind of expensive (say $1 per tree), but cheap compared to the cost of planting a tree and maintaining it. Once you have all that data, to stick it on a public website is easy. Or even better, post it to your open data site, and let opentrees.org use it.

xiaq 6y ago

AFAIK in London the data are extracted from the archives of the local councils that planted the trees in the first place and were responsible for maintenance afterwards. I can imagine a best-case scenario is that they already have maps of the borough where they mark all the trees, and it's a matter of digitializing those maps and combining them. It still takes time to combine all these data, presumably, but there were some useful studies on the ecologicical effects of different types of trees that came out of these data.

Someone 6y ago

I would think cities already have the data, as they have to do safety inspections on their trees, take them into account when doing street renovations, report on the ‘greenness’ of the city, etc. Opening up the data isn’t that costly, and fits “Open Data” policies. Apps around this often are third party.

petr_tik 6y ago

Since leafy surroundings and tree presence is one of the selling points for good properties, it would be great to align incentives of real estate agencies and such data collection efforts

m-i-l 6y ago

> "i always ask myself what the value proposition and applications for such maps are. It seems like they take large resources (e.g. manual collection of the data) to create" There was a survey a few years back to assess the economic value of the trees in London, for pollution removal, stormwater alleviation, etc. which put the total annual benefits at £132.7M[0]. [0] https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/valuing_londons_urban_forest_i-tree_report_final.pdf https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/valuing_london...

stevage 6y ago

The map is generally a pretty cheap by-product of two much more expensive processes: planting trees, and maintaining trees. To do any kind of long term strategic management of the assets (trees) generally requires knowing what you have, which means a tree survey. That's kind of expensive (say $1 per tree), but cheap compared to the cost of planting a tree and maintaining it. Once you have all that data, to stick it on a public website is easy. Or even better, post it to your open data site, and let opentrees.org use it.