MAPPING EVERY STREET TREE IN

NEW YORK CITY

Liam Kavanagh

First Deputy Commissioner

City of New York Parks & Recreation

Partners in Community Forestry

Denver, Colorado

November 19, 2015

• Street trees last year:

19,000 planted

115,000 pruned

12,000 removed

New York City Overview

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• 1 million trees planted 2007 - 2015

• 21% canopy cover (7 million trees)*

• 29,000 acres of parkland (14% of land area)

7,500 acres forest and upland

2+ million landscape trees

592,000+ street trees

2,200 greenstreets

*based on field observations from 2013 and modeled data from 2008. From draft report from the U.S. Forest

Service, The Urban Forest of New York City, by Nowak, Dave et. al., expected publication early 2017

Trees Count! 2015

NYC Street Tree Census Impacts

1995:

• 30-day dead tree removal customer service

commitment

• Justification and funding for a block pruning

maintenance program

2005:

• Quantified and valued ecological services – more

than $121 million annually

• Directly led to MillionTreesNYC and a massive

expansion in the number of citizen tree stewards

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Trees Count! 2015

2005

• Paper field data collection with optional desktop

data entry for volunteers

• Trees located by address and cross streets

• Address based look-up tables integrated with GIS

(ForMS)

1995

• Paper field data collection

• Trees located by address and cross-streets

• Tabular database to manage work (Tree

Manager)

Technology and Trees

4Trees Count! 2015

Trees Count! 2015

…to this in 2015

address-based (hit or miss) tree location

TreeKIT survey method (precise) tree location

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From this in 2005

Mapping Method

Technology and Trees 2015

• Web-based mobile field data collection

• Trees located using traditional linear survey methods (TreeKIT)

• Data managed on GIS-based web application (ForMS 2.0)

Management tool

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Advantages to 2015 Survey Method

• Simpler than a GPS unit.

• More consistent than heads-

up digitizing.

• Collects highly standardized,

spatially accurate data with

little training

• Has been widely tested and

proven to be easy for

volunteers to use

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• Location (XY)*

• Alive / Dead / Stump

• Size

• Tree Species

• Overall Health

• Evidence of Stewardship

• Tree Guards

• Sidewalk Condition

• Tree Problems (root / trunk

/ branch)

TreesCount! 2015 Data Collected

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TreesCount! 2015 Web Platform

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TreesCount! 2015 Web Platform

Trees Count! 2015 10

Preliminary Results (Manhattan)

Tree SpeciesTree Condition

Trees Count! 2015 11

Preliminary Results (Manhattan)

Signs of StewardshipDiameter Distribution

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NYC Street Tree Map

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• Stewardship map will

link and coordinate

public tree care actions

with municipal forest

management through a

shared map of NYC’s

street trees

Trees Count! 2015

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