Why age so the size of a tree matters?

It is almost a year since we have kicked-off the platform development of TreesAI together with our colleagues and friends from Dark Matter Labs. However, it was last Friday that I had the chance to participate in a conference on Trees for the first time.

A striking message of the 3rd European iTree conference was around how important that we need to let the trees grow into maturity rather than planting trees without long term maintenance schemes.

We have been observing this phenomenon very clearly with our Scenario Analysis Framework (SAF). The figure above is an exemplary summary output from a Monte-Carlo simulation that I have devised and run with SAF. It presents the growth pattern of a newly planted urban forest. At this scenario the forest has been provided with a continuous care. The dead trees are replaced with saplings; a careful mulching regime has been in place which has also reduced the carbon release; because of a good care, sick trees recover better and contagious diseases are circumvented.

It is beautiful to observe how a three-phase tree growth pattern emerges out of the model itself. Each tree interacts with each other and with its surroundings under a given weather projection.

Following the footpath of iTree, we have been relying on the peer-reviewed studies and will make the source code open for the other researchers and practitioners. SAF can be used as a granular Digital Twin of urban forests as well as can serve as a computational lab for a better planning and care.

Bulent Ozel, PhD.

TreesAI has been featured by the World Economic Forum and COP26 and has been supported by Google.org, Morgen Stanley and EIT Climate Kic.