According to a 2016 publication in the ARCHDAILY website, New York’s Department of Parks and Recreation started a program in 2015 called Tress Count! It gathered over 2.000 volunteers to learn about the trees in their environment, what state they were in, what care they needed, their measurements and how they benefit the surrounding community.
During months they walked the streets gathering all this information together with a group of monitors that had previously trained them. This allowed the city to collect the data in an urban forest registry, available in the New York City Tree Map. It contains statistics of the registered trees and their exact location, an activity calendar related to their care, total number of species and the most common in each neighbourhood. Each tree was assigned an ID number and an identifying species tag.
Moreover, when choosing a tree on the map, additional information is displayed: amount of rainwater it retains each year, economic savings (that could reach in some cases USD 500.00 per year), the electricity conserved and the reduction of air pollution.
Check the map out yourself at tree-map.nycgovparks.org
The success has developed in other cities around the world implementing similar programs; some of our regional partners are already looking into it! This will help create awareness of the importance of urban landscape.
