Asking the Public to Branch Out with Crowdsourcing
Urban street trees have myriad proven benefits for communities including providing shade, improving air quality, assisting with stormwater runoff, raising property values, decreasing utility bills, and enhancing the look and feel of communities. Crowdsourcing to the rescue.
While tree inventories ensure that municipalities have data to consult when managing the urban forest, creating a complete inventory is a time consuming and resource intensive process.
treeOcode Niagara provides an easy-to-use public inventorying platform that encourages the public to contribute to an interactive and dynamic map of the region’s tree population.
Trees have already been preloaded into the system, but the developers are counting on the public to add the rest.
Why is crowdsourcing of the Urban Forest important? See the video below.