Key Features
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This feature allows the user to get a list of all of the planted trees in the data base. The list includes the trees' ids, their species, height, diameter, municipality, location and health status. This excludes all trees that have already been cut down.
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This feature allows the user to get a list of all planted trees in the data base that are within an area that is specified by the user. In order to specify an area, the user must input a coordinate (longitude and latitude), as well as a radial distance, in kilometers. The user will receive a list of all the trees within the circular area that is centered at the coordinate specified by the user. Once again, this list includes various tree attributes and excludes trees that have already been cut down.
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Similar to the previous features, listing trees in a municipality allows the users to get a list of all the planted trees that are within the same municipality. The list also specifies the various attributes of the trees, such as their species, ids, date planted, height, diameter, and location. The desired municipality can be selected by the user. Likewise, trees' attributes will also appear in this list, while trees that have been cut down will not.
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Just as listing all trees in a municipality, list trees of a certain species displays a list of all of the planted trees of the same species, as well as their ids, municipality, height, diameter, and location. The species in question is specified by the user.
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Lastly, this feature will list all of the trees belonging to a specified resident. By specifying the tree owner that they are looking for, the user will receive a list of all trees belonging to the residents of the same name. The tree attributes also appear, however, trees that have already been cut down do not.
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Planting a tree is a vital feature in the MonTREEal app. Since scientists are often on the move, however, we decided to implement planting a tree on only the Android application. A user can specify that a tree has been planted at a given location. In order to do this, the tree species, municipality, and the tree owner's name must be specified. The longitude and latitude are calculated automatically based on where the user has tapped on the map.
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This method allows the status of a tree to be changed to healthy from what it was originally. A tree can be marked as Healthy only if it is currently marked for cut down or marked as diseased.
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A resident or scientist can request to mark a tree as diseased on the Android app. The scientist, however, has the power to accept or veto this decision and officially change a tree's status. A tree may only be marked as diseased if it was previously healthy, or marked for cut down.
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A user can mark a healthy or diseased tree that they believe must be cut down. Similar to marking trees as diseased, marking a tree for cut down can only be completed by scientists on a tree that was previously marked either as healthy or as diseased.
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A tree can only be marked down after a scientist has inspected a tree that is marked for cut down, and that this scientist deems that cutting down the tree is the correct decision. Thus, a tree that is simply healthy or marked as diseased cannot be cut down before being marked for cut down. As a scientist cannot physically cut down a tree themselves, they will send a note to the municipality in charge to send the right people to do the job.
In order to portray and project oneself into the future, the forecasting of the trees in the region of Montreal can be done by estimating how certain sustainability attributes will affect our land. These sustainability attributes such as the biodiversity index, the carbon sequestration and the monthly quantity of water needed by trees will be calculated by our system. Thus, one can find these information on a specified region in the city of Montreal. Any user will be able to select a point on a map by specifying its coordinates for its longitude and latitude, as well as a radius to determine how much coverage does the region include. By specifying this area, the sustainability attributes will be calculated depending on the region.
For more depth and insight on the sources of these calculations, please refer to the References page for the studies and sources that have been used to calculate the sustainability attributes described below.
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The biodiversity index takes the number of different tree species found in the region and divides it by the total number of trees within this area. The result of this calculation is the Biodiversity Index, and is outputted as a decimal value between 0 and 1. The diversity in species increases as the number is high. Thus, a greater number is a better for our society.
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Another feature of this system is the calculation of how much Carbon dioxide (C02) is absorbed by the trees in the area selected. This quantity depends on the diameter, the height and the density measurements that are specific to each tree species. The data containing all the possible tree species that can grow on the land of Canada is stored in the system. Each tree species has a density which has been averaged but collecting data from scientific studies based on similar types of trees over the last few years. For more depth, please refer to reference [1].
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Similar to the previous sustainability attributes, this feature is done on a collection of trees located in an area specified by the user. then, it calculates the amount of water the trees in the area require monthly to grow healthily. By knowing that depending on the diameter of the trees, the amount of water needed will grow linearly.
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A new menu is created where the list of current trees is duplicated. Using this new list, the user can add one or many trees. These new additions do not affect the official list of trees, since they are only projections of how our land would look like in few years. Once the user has added the trees that they would like, the sustainability attributes can be recalculated to include the new additions.
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Just as in adding trees to a forecast, the existing trees are in a list where trees can be removed. Once the desired amount of trees have been added or removed, the sustainability attributes can be calculated to include these changes. Once again, removing trees from a forecast would not affect the actual tree list in the application.
It is important to note that trees can be added and removed within the same forecast, and the sustainability attributes will be calculated accordingly. The two features were separated merely for clarity of the documentation.