Auckland's Urban Forest: From Guesswork to Precision with greehill Trees

Synopsis

Discover how Auckland transformed its urban forestry management from legacy system currently used by a majority of city tree managers today, to one of data-driven precision using greehill Trees. This guide details the significant findings when Auckland partnered with greehill to verify its tree network, uncovering approximately 37% more trees than initially estimated. This revelation necessitated an immediate overhaul of Operations & Management budgets, pruning schedules, and safety protocols. The book outlines Auckland's journey to tree-specific digital records. It details how the city quantified its maintenance backlog, including wire and road clearances and tree vitality issues, and generated contractor-ready worklists supported by robust evidence. Learn how greehill Trees provided the essential data and tools to build a defensible budget case grounded in measured needs, enabling certified arborists to conduct remote assessments, saving valuable time and resources. Explore the challenges faced, such as an aging inventory that undercounted assets and led to misaligned budgets and cycles. Understand how reactive maintenance created safety and service exposures, and how consent workflows, like those for driveway widenings, consumed significant arborist time. This guide sheds light on the critical need for rapid, remote assessments for heritage trees, even those on private property. Delve into the solution: greehill Trees' capture of street-level LiDAR and imagery, which automatically generated a comprehensive, standards-based set of per-tree metrics. These metrics empowered Auckland's teams to meticulously plan work and justify budgets. The book details key metrics such as Dimensions & DBH, Tree Protection Zones (TPZ) and Root Protection Zones (RPZ) for consents, a composite Vitality index, Dieback percentage, Structural Stability Index (TSI), Clearances & Encroachments, and summarized Ecosystem services (i-Tree Eco) for budget narratives. 'Auckland's Urban Forest' presents the tangible outcomes: needs-based cohorts for maintenance, streamlined consent and heritage workflows, contractor-ready exports, and defensible budget scenarios. It highlights the shift to desk-first operations, reducing unnecessary site visits and dispatching crews only where data indicated a need. The impact is clear: a budget realignment to actual assets, a significantly improved safety posture, faster approvals through remote reviews, and enhanced protection for heritage trees. This book serves as an essential resource for municipal leaders and urban forestry professionals seeking to implement efficient, evidence-based tree management strategies.