The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program supports small businesses with inspired ideas with federal grant funding for research and development (Phase I), and product commercialization (Phase II) purposes. Azavea has received SBIR grant funding in the past to develop HunchLab, our crime analysis, early warning and forecasting software; DecisionTree, our web-based planning and prioritization system; and GPU-based geoprocessing optimization (see next article). We are pleased to announce the award of a new Phase I SBIR grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support the development of a web-based urban forestry application we are calling OpenTreeMap.
Across the country, millions of citizens are passionate about greening their communities by planting and caring for trees. But they lack the tools necessary to work together, observe progress, and manage information over time. Azavea’s OpenTreeMap will build on the success of other wiki-style applications such as OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia by enabling the public to collaboratively and efficiently detail and map the entire street tree population in their urban neighborhoods. They will also be able to provide input on the health or overall condition of each tree, its species, and its approximate size through the use of online tutorials.
The City of Philadelphia will serve as the test location for the prototype OpenTreeMap application. The prototype will first be accessible to participants from a wide variety of government, non-government, and volunteer organizations. Philadelphia is typical of large urban environments in many ways, and therefore an appropriate case study as we develop OpenTreeMap for a publicly nationwide use. Azavea will be collaborating on this project over the next six months with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, who will provide the necessary data sets and urban forestry expertise.
The potential for a wiki-style map database where citizens and local governments can collectively build a tree inventory is very impressive. Urban street trees have been proven to increase energy efficiency in urban locations by providing valuable shade in summer and wind abatement in the winter. They also protect our nation’s waterways from the pollution of urban stormwater runoff by intercepting rainfall and helping to channel it back into the atmosphere. It is our hope that OpenTreeMap will provide a web-based interface for the collaborative inventory of trees that will be as helpful to students and volunteers as it is functional for government and environmental organizations involved in the daily management and replenishment of the urban forest.
This project was supported by the Small Business Innovation Research program of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Grant Number (2010-33610-20937).
