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.
*Note: All of these methods can be performed by completing a new survey on a tree. See the Survey section for more information.
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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. This decision is kept in the Web frontend, so that only scientists can make the decision that a tree's status has changed.
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Only a scientist can request to mark a tree as diseased, and as such, this functionality has been kept solely on the Web frontend. 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 changes in the environment 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. Three sustainability attributes are currently calculated, including biodiversity index, carbon sequestration and the monthly quantity of water needed by trees. In order to do so, a user is able to select a point on a map by specifying its longitude and latitude, as well as a radius to determine the radial coverage of the region that they want included in the calculations. The sustainability attributes will be calculated for the trees within this specified area.
For more depth and insight on 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 a specified circular area 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 variety in tree species grows. Thus, a greater biodiversity index indicates that there is greater species diversity, a desired trait 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 a selected area. 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 in Canada is stored in the system. Each tree species has a density which has been averaged based on data collected from scientific studies on similar types of trees over the last few years. For more depth, please refer to references [1] and [2].
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Similar to the previous sustainability attributes, this feature collects all of the trees located in an area specified by the user. Then, the system calculates the amount of water the trees in this area require monthly to grow healthily. By knowing that depending on the diameter of the trees, the amount of water needed will grow linearly. For more depth, please refer to reference [3].
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In forecasting mode, 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.
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TreePLE allows scientists to conduct surveys on existing trees. On the main dashboard page, authorized users can modify the height, diameter and status of a tree. The method automatically creates a survey with the current date's timestamp. In the future, scientists will be able to view all surveys for particular trees. As explained earlier, this feature allows scientists to mark trees as: "Healthy", "Diseased", "MarkedForCutDown" and "CutDown".