Raven Invasive Plant Management
Description: Northern Virginia volunteers who promote trees.
By Nora Palmatier, President
Ever since Tree Stewards’ first tree census project at Ft. Myers Joint Base in 2008, members have completed similar tasks for the Tree Canopy Fund, and in neighborhood parks, schools, churches, and condos. Each project, we kept our feet on the ground, looking up into the trees’ canopy, and recording information with pencil and paper.
This summer, our tree measuring projects were literally turned upside down and we looked down on the tree leaves using Google Earth imagery through i-Tree Canopy. This is a free software tool from the United States Forestry Service that can be used on personal computers to easily and accurately estimate tree and other cover classes (e.g., grass, building, roads, etc.) within a set area. Urban Forest Manager Vincent Verweij used his GIS skills to set up our citizen science project using the boundaries of Arl
Raven Invasive Plant Management