BENGALURU: A first of its kind tree census using the latest available technology will take off on a pilot basis in Jayanagar here on Sunday. The census will use a mobile app for documenting the city’s tree cover and will be dedicated to Seturam Neginhal, a former forest officer and the man behind the city’s huge tree cover (developed in the 1980s) and responsible for transforming it into a Garden City. Project Vruksha Foundation, which took up the development of this mobile app, say till now it was a web application which was doing the job.
Each tree will be digitally documented for a comprehensive tree census. The digitalization of recording the city’s tree cover has been going on an experimental basis for the past eight years in three wards and 5,500 trees have already been counted in these wards.One can get the tree data later on their website: vruksha.com. Apart from urban conservationist Vijay Nishanth, his team includes - Ravi, Sharieff and Chaveen while Nathash and Madan have helped to develop the software.
The brainchild behind the project, Nishanth adds, “Parameters like height, girth, width, age, health, GPS position, etc can be recorded using this app. We will transfer the technology to BBMP once the census takes off in all the wards.
This becomes a permanent data and one can know the exact tree numbers on any road. Further, in the event of trees being poisoned or felled, it will help both the authorities and people to easily track. Through this app, any rise in tree numbers can also be updated very easily in any of the 198 wards.” This unique mobile app developed for mapping the tree cover of Bengaluru has generated keen interest in other cities too. Project Vruksha will next move to Mysuru in April for demonstrating this app and recording the tree cover there.