Today is the final day of the DSSG program, and we’re wrapping things up. We’ve not only documented our work, but also left detailed instructions on how to recreate what we’ve done with new or different data. In addition, we’ve developed a public facing website that outlines our work and deliverables for Trees Atlanta and the Atlanta Trees Conservation Commission. We have split up our deliverables into three different needs.
Biodiversity
Identifying the biodiversity of trees planted is not only useful to maintain a diverse urban forest, but also to identify what parts of an urban forest are more at risk due to a pest or disease. We’ve developed three interactive visualizations as solutions for this need. Leaflet.js and d3.js were the main javascript libraries used to develop these front end interactive visualizations.
- ATL Street Trees Visualization: Visualizes the biodiversity of trees planted by Trees Atlanta from 1994-2014. You can filter by genus, species, cultivarname, and year planted.
- City Street Trees Visualization: Similar to ATL Street Trees Visualization, but uses the downtown tree inventory data.
- ATL Trees Diversity Visualization: Allows users to visualize diversity of trees planted by Trees Atlanta by genus and Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs)
Planting Prioritization
Prioritizing potential planting locations within the city of Atlanta expedites and helps the scouting process for arborists at Trees Atlanta. In addition, it allows policy makers to see what parts of Atlanta need more trees. We’ve developed a Planting Prioritization application that allows users to prioritize planting locations by weighing three factors: urban tree canopy, impervious surface, and temperature. Due to the large amount of data, we used a full stack that includes PostgreSQL/PostGIS, PHP, and Javascript (d3.js and Leaflet.js).
Contiguous Tracts of Forests
Identifying contiguous tracts of forests within Atlanta is crucial for the Atlanta Tree Conservation Commission. We’ve developed a Contiguous Forests application that allows users to not only identify tracts of forests, but filter through them by urban tree canopy, forest acreage, and estimated price. The Atlanta Tree Conservation Commision will use this tool to find tracts of land to evaluate for conservation purposes. Due to the large amount of data, we used a full stack that includes PostgreSQL/PostGIS, PHP, and Javascript (d3.js and Leaflet.js).
Working directly with clients, developing solutions based on needs, learning valuable skills, working in teams, and helping our city is what Data Science for Social Good is all about. Thanks for following our blog posts! We’d also like to thank our partners, Kathy Evans from the City of Atlanta and Alex Beasley from Trees Atlanta, and our mentors, Bistra Dilkina and Tony Giarrusso, for all the support and opportunities throughout this summer! Please feel free to contact me at smoningi3@gatech.edu with any questions about our project or blog posts.
