Mapping Significant Trees in Urban Areas

A project carried out by Lex Chalmers and Andrew Hansford in the Department of Geography, at the University of Waikato.

The paper written to report on the project develops a methodology for mapping and assessing the significance of trees in urban areas. Global Positioning Survey (GPS) and a hand-held computer were used in the project with an ArcPAD application from Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI).

The purpose of assessing "significance" and the evaluation of this significance is explored in the research paper along with a description of the software application developed as part of this project.   The assessment of the trees at the reference site (Hamilton’s Memorial Park) was supported by access to archival records that outlined the important heritage of trees in the reference site.

The method of assessment and the field inspection of the reference site are described in the research paper. The STEMS methodology was used, with the ARCPAD application requiring two sets of code.  The HTML code that was developed using the ESRI ARCPAD Application builder and Studio software is made available here in .txt form.  The HTML called a number of Visual Basic subroutines, and these are available for download in .txt format from here. These downloads are available without charge, but with acknowledgement where appropriate.