Every time I encounter a map of New York City’s trees, my first thought is that I must have covered it before, but no, each time it’s bigger in scope and covers more trees. First it was each tree in Central Park (19,630), then it was every tree managed by the city’s parks department (~860,000), and now every tree in the city (~1.8 million) is mapped and identified by genus in the NYC Tree Genus Map. Details at the Cornell Chronicle:

It’s the first “wall-to-wall,” citywide map identifying trees, and it includes trees on private property, in natural areas and other unsurveyed areas, which together constitute an estimated 65% of the city’s canopy and have not been accounted for on previous maps. The research team will use the map to determine which trees are best for cooling, and the data could inform a host of other planting decisions where the type of tree makes a difference, from reducing allergens to managing invasive pests.

The map applied machine learning to satellite, on-the-ground and LIDAR data, and was able to identify tree genera at an overall accuracy rate of 82 percent (a lot of the related article, currently in press/early access, is about assessing the accuracy of the method). [Tara Calishain]