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Tag: Urban Forestry

Seeing The Forest Through the Trees

There were a lot of splashy tech innovations in the early 2000s: camera phones, iPods, and high-accuracy consumer GPS, to name a few. At the same time, the field of urban forestry was having its own tech evolution.

Urban forestry refers to the planting, maintenance, and protection of trees growing in urban settings. These trees provide communities with essential infrastructural services and human health benefits but require strategic planning and a skilled workforce to maintain. The industry had specialized technology to complete tree inventories and track work orders, but the ability to analyze tree canopies via imagery was a new development.

For the first time, the distribution of tree canopy within a city could be mapped via satellite imagery with a high degree of accuracy.

The Tree Data Boom

High-resolution satellite imagery was becoming broadly available and the analysis software to make sense of those pixels was also rapidly improving. For the first time, the distribution of tree canopy within a city could be mapped via satellite imagery with a high degree of accuracy. Once mapped, other information could be layered on top, such as census data and planning boundaries, which helps urban foresters better plan and manage their tree resources.

Ian Hanou PhotoThis process is called an Urban Tree Canopy (UTC) Assessment. Rising visionary, Ian Hanou, experienced the imagery analysis evolution firsthand, completing hundreds of UTC assessments for clients all over the country while working for a large environmental engineering firm. Hanou explains, “Cities were wowed they could hire a company and in just a couple of months get a wealth of urban forest data they previously didn’t know was possible.”

Clients were thrilled to have access to all this new information but it was difficult to interact with. “Technology is difficult,” says Hanou “and in our field, working with arborists and urban foresters, the majority are not specialized in technology. There was a need to make mapping easy, to do Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis without knowing how to do GIS.”

Seeing the Forest Through the Trees

This knowledge gap between foresters and the visual data that could vastly improve their work motivated Hanou to create a solution. He founded PlanIT Geo In 2012 in Arvada, where he and the company got to work developing the proprietary software suite, TreePlotter, to make urban forestry data collection and management faster — with less technical hurdles, and more accessibility and interactivity for professionals and the general public.

READ MORE ABOUT TREEPLOTTER, AND HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS CHANGING URBAN FORESTRY

The powerful, yet easy-to-use software was quickly embraced by the industry and in three months the company grew from one to seven employees. That growth has continued, and PlanIT Geo now has 35 employees, software clients on five continents across 20 countries, and offers tree inventory, urban forestry consulting, and geospatial mapping services in addition to its subscription software products.

PlanIT Geo has begun offering canopy assessments that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze high resolution aerial imagery.

In 2021, PlanIT Geo was also one of  36 Colorado companies to be awarded an Early Stage Capital Grant from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT)’s Advanced Industries Accelerator Grant Program. The funds will be used to accelerate product development, marketing, customer success, and international growth.

The company is continuing to evolve as technology advancements open up new possibilities. Most recently, PlanIT Geo has begun offering canopy assessments that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze high resolution aerial imagery. This shrinks the turnaround time from a couple months to a couple days at lower cost, again, making technology and access to data easier for more urban forestry programs.

With four SaaS products, deep subject matter expertise, and an upcoming outside strategic investment, PlanIT Geo is poised for exciting growth. The scale may be changing, but the mission remains the same: mapping the world’s urban forests for a greener future.

 

Alec SabatiniAlec Sabatini is a writer and editor at PlanIT Geo, a global urban forestry consulting and software development firm, where he creates educational content at the intersection of trees and technology. To learn more about the latest in innovative urban forestry, visit: PlanIT Geo.

AI is Changing Urban Forestry

What comes to mind when you hear the word infrastructure? Roads, bridges, maybe power lines and storm drains?

Add to that list — the trees lining the street and shading your favorite parks.

These trees, collectively known as the “urban forest,” also provide essential infrastructural services. They mitigate stormwater, cool air temperatures, improve air quality, and enhance the livability of communities. The urban forest canopy is becoming increasingly important as global populations urbanize and climate change intensifies.

Yet, over the years an upwards of over 20 million trees were lost every year in U.S. cities from development and climate change to lack of care and labor shortages. The urban forest requires continuous upkeep, just like any infrastructure, to continue providing benefits to the communities around them.

Cities can now measure their tree canopy coverage in a couple of days instead of a couple months.

Combating Canopy Loss With Technology

This is the domain of PlanIT Geo, an Arvada-based tech company that developed a suite of software applications to simplify and improve urban forest management. The company made a name for itself first in consulting and then by creating leading-edge software for urban foresters.

Skyline Of Denver Downtown With Rocky Mountains

The company’s latest innovation is looking to tree canopy analysis — where satellite imagery and geographic data are used to map out the distribution of trees in a defined area. It provides foresters with a big-picture view of the quantity and location of their trees and helps guide where new trees should be planted.

Historically, a tree canopy analysis is a lengthy process, requiring contracting a specialized company, lots of meetings, and special budgeting to absorb the large cost every 5-10 years. A response by PlanIT Geo was to partner with EarthDefine out of Redmond, Washington, in using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to offer dramatically faster and less expensive canopy analysis.

More Accessible Data Means Better Managed Trees

Nowadays, there is no longer a need for staff utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze or scope a tree canopy study — the work is already done by AI. Cities can now measure their tree canopy coverage in a couple of days instead of a couple months. And, since it is on an annual subscription model, the cost is flatlined into more manageable payments.

This has opened the door for smaller urban forestry programs to get data previously only pursued by larger cities. For example, locally in the Grand Valley, it was unlikely Grand Junction’s forestry department would have been able to purchase a traditional canopy analysis. This new offering was accessible for their budget and the forestry department can now back up budget discussions with city leadership with hard numbers about the value of their trees.

Through partnerships and AI analysis, it is now easier more than ever to use and share information on changes in urban tree canopy. More communities are going to be able to track the health of their urban forests and work towards more equitable distribution of their trees. This latest tech innovation for canopy assessment equates to better understood urban forests, which leads to better management, and therefore more resilient and livable communities.

 

Alec SabatiniAlec Sabatini is a writer and editor at PlanIT Geo, a global urban forestry consulting and software development firm, where he creates educational content at the intersection of trees and technology. To learn more about the latest in innovative urban forestry, visit: PlanIT Geo.