With the fasting growing population among Australian capital cities, the leaders of Melbourne are committed to maintaining the city’s liveability. “We have a responsibility to preserve the city for the next generation, making sure that it’s an ideal place where people can live, work and play,” he said.
Melbourne is renowned for its parks, gardens and heritage tree-lined boulevards, all of which have helped shape the city’s character for over a century. But its urban forest is valued not only for its visual appeal but for the environmental and economic contributions it provides.
In the face of climate change and its booming population, the city is challenged to protect its existing trees. The city, therefore, takes the management of its tree population very seriously.
All of its 70,000 trees are individually geo-coded and recorded in its database. Using GIS, the trees are plotted on an interactive online map, which allows city leaders and the public to easily visualise the location, life expectancy and diversity of trees in the city.
Many of Melbourne’s trees are approaching the end of their useful life due to a combination of age and the combined stresses of extended drought, extreme heat and water restrictions. “At a glance, you can see the useful life expectancy of the trees. Currently, 22 per cent of our trees will be dead in 10 years, and that percentage doubles in 20 years,” Fairweather said.
Melbourne has been experiencing decreased rainfall and warmer temperatures over the years. Annual average rainfall is expected to decrease by 4 per cent by 2030 and 11 per cent by 2070.
“The increasing frequency and seriousness of drought poses challenges to our trees. We have installed sensors in the ground to monitor the water density in the soil,” he added. Data from these sensors when overlaid on the Urban Forest Visual map provides city administrators with actionable insights on how needs to be done to preserve its tree population.
The interactive map, now available online, has helped the city better engage the public in its sustainability efforts. “The GIS system helps us tell the story to our community and get them involved in the continuing story on what we are going to do with our forest,” he said. The city is committed to open data and is striving to publish more data in machine readable format.
Besides making geographic data open to the public, the city is garnering help from the community to collect data. The ‘Citizen Urban Forester’ project aims to get volunteers to gather information on the trees and shrubs in parks, gardens and streets.
“There are also about 20,000 trees in citizens’ hands on private property. We want to engage tree owners to join us in building a complete picture of the city’s urban forest and monitor the health and diversity of the tree population,” Fairweather said.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Kelly Ng
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 11.06.2014
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