| Description |
Urban forests play a critical role in contributing to urban resilience through the provision of ecosystem services such as environmental hazard mitigation, energy cost savings, and improvements in mental health and well-being (slc.gov, 2022). With cities like Salt Lake City entering a new era of development and growth in the face of climate change, monitoring and maintaining urban forest inventories is crucial. With this said, digital tools are becoming more prevalent in urban planning, and studies have shown that Google Street View (GSV) could serve as a complement to traditional street surveying and field work for urban tree monitoring and urban forest management (Biljecki and Ito, 2021). This project investigated the viability of using GSV to assess urban tree health and mortality in Salt Lake City. Additionally, this project investigated its role and applicability in urban forest monitoring. Lastly, this project finalized a toolkit to aid urban foresters in using GSV for urban tree health and mortality surveys. As it stands, urban tree inventorying is a field that is currently lacking a broad community connection (Bingqian Ma et al., 2021). However, this method may be a great citizen science connection and can be used by interns, volunteers, and students to assist urban foresters in maintaining updated tree inventories in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner. |
