I'm not sure I understand what it means to measure the "economic value of a tree". Yes, trees provide shade and reduce pollution, but does that really mean one can meaningfully attach a dollar value to a tree?<p>There are two statements that I think are meaningful: "this tree costs $X to plant and maintain", and "This tree provides benefits that would otherwise cost $X". But if you want to make the latter statement, are you <i>really</i> sure you've captured all the benefits? Including aesthetic ones? Because I'm not really convinced that's possible.
This is also getting available for the complete Netherlands (also information like benches, trash bin's, drainage etc) on <a href="http://pdokviewer.pdok.nl/" rel="nofollow">http://pdokviewer.pdok.nl/</a><p>A screenshot of some of this data: <a href="http://imgur.com/Pgvzfnf" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/Pgvzfnf</a>
Melbourne has been doing a similar thing for some time now: <a href="http://melbourneurbanforestvisual.com.au/" rel="nofollow">http://melbourneurbanforestvisual.com.au/</a>
I think they have some data integrity problems: <a href="https://tree-map.nycgovparks.org/#treeinfo-3752098" rel="nofollow">https://tree-map.nycgovparks.org/#treeinfo-3752098</a>
Trunk Diameter: 424 inches<p>Riiiiight...
Just to clarify, it's not all of NYC trees. The map doesn't include trees in parks or on private land. It is only sidewalk trees. Still a wonderful project.
Indianapolis has a group called Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIB) that works to beautify the city and help decrease long term maintenance costs to the city. To that end, every year they plant thousands of trees, often removing entire plots of land from the maintenance rotation because trees don't require mowing. They have a database that tracks source nurseries, species, locations, etcetera that I'm sure would be a delight to dig through.
Washington DC did this <a href="http://dcgis.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=fea6079cf9bc4310a8b6c94f8c2bf1da" rel="nofollow">http://dcgis.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=...</a>
What a fantastic site this and the others people have posted on here are. Making this kind of information available to people is a great way to change their opinion of something that otherwise they probably think doesn't do anything for them, or that has a cost, not a benefit to the local economy and environment, and is the kind of information we need to give our kids access to so it becomes de rigeur to understand how important trees are. With all the bad news in the world at the moment, this has been a ray of sunshine, thanks.
Zürich has it too <a href="https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/ted/de/index/gsz/planung_u_bau/inventare_und_grundlagen/baumkataster.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/ted/de/index/gsz/planung_u_bau/...</a>
Paris :<p>- street trees ("alignement")<p><a href="https://opendata.paris.fr/explore/dataset/arbresalignementparis2010/map/?location=18,48.86212,2.36627" rel="nofollow">https://opendata.paris.fr/explore/dataset/arbresalignementpa...</a><p>- park trees<p><a href="https://opendata.paris.fr/explore/dataset/les-arbres/map/?location=19,48.84257,2.38825" rel="nofollow">https://opendata.paris.fr/explore/dataset/les-arbres/map/?lo...</a>
Frankfurt also did this: <a href="https://www.frankfurt.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=3051&_ffmpar%5B_id_inhalt%5D=24228872" rel="nofollow">https://www.frankfurt.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=3051&_ffmpar%5...</a>
My city Edmonton, Canada also has a map of all the trees they maintain: <a href="https://data.edmonton.ca/Environmental-Services/Trees-Species-Map-View-/cggb-hzzm/data" rel="nofollow">https://data.edmonton.ca/Environmental-Services/Trees-Specie...</a>
San Francisco, CA - I helped develop a super basic Android app called Treedat, we didn't publish on the Play Store since it was just to play around with the SF dataset and we were just curious what kind of species we were looking at when we're walking around SF: bit.ly/treedat
Is there a way to search ones own comments? I was in a discussion about the yearly price of urban trees a while back on HN, and I thought the numbers would be relevant to this story, but I can't find an easy way to dig up the post.
so, is there a consulting question in here somewhere... If there are X trees in NYC/SF, and each tree can stay alive if only peed on by 100 dogs per week, how many dogs are in those cities?
Do you think it's strange that cities need to map nature to prove its economic value?<p>I've never understood the appeal of cities (other than a quick 1-2 day visit).<p>Cities are more inefficient[1], have more pollution[2], have less nature[3], stink like shit[4], have less happiness[5], have more noise[6], require subways and mass transit just to get around, are more expensive[7], etc. (the list almost doesn't end).<p>1. <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/content/download/70101/1253214/version/1/file/inefficientcities_final.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.hks.harvard.edu/content/download/70101/1253214/v...</a><p>2. <a href="http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20490855,00.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20490855,00.html</a><p>3. I don't think I need a citation for this one<p>4. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-new-york-city-smells-in-the-summer-2016-6" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/why-new-york-city-smells-in-t...</a><p>5. <a href="http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/06/the-price-of-happiness-in-cities/487823/" rel="nofollow">http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/06/the-price-of-happines...</a><p>6. <a href="http://earthjournalism.net/resources/noise-pollution-managing-the-challenge-of-urban-sounds" rel="nofollow">http://earthjournalism.net/resources/noise-pollution-managin...</a><p>7. <a href="http://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-2/expenditures-of-urban-and-rural-households-in-2011.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-2/expenditures-of-urban-a...</a>