On the 27th of July, the Municipal Inventory of the Arvoredo in Urban Space was presented at the António Mota Municipal Library.
The presentation was given by Pedro Alves, technician from the Forest Association of Entre Douro e Tâmega (AFEDT), specialist in Geographic Information Systems.
Also present were the Mayor of Baião, Paulo Pereira and the Municipal Coordinator of Civil Protection, José Manuel Ribeiro.
FLORA PRESERVATION INCREASES QUALITY OF LIFE
The presence of trees in an urban context plays a key role in improving the quality of life, as it provides a series of benefits, such as improving air quality, lowering the temperature, as well as stimulating biodiversity and helping to mitigate climate change, among other advantages.
Carrying out this inventory is a legal requirement that defines the municipal strategy for urban trees and creates an action framework that promotes and systematizes the interventions of the municipality in the planning, implementation, management, maintenance and classification of the municipality’s arboreal heritage and consisted of surveying in a complete way, on site, the existing urban vegetation both in municipal public spaces and in private properties of the municipality.
Baião is one of the first Portuguese municipalities to complete this important document.
INTEGRATED SOLUTION AND REAL-TIME MONITORING
In addition to drawing up the municipal inventory, according to Pedro Alves, “the municipality of Baião went even further than the legislation requires, as it did not limit itself to drawing up the inventory. An online platform was created, which enables the management and monitoring of the urban tree inventory, in real time and which can be used at any time, in any place and through different devices”.
This platform also allows the citizen to interact in an easy and intuitive way with the municipal services, requesting any necessary intervention or, eventually, asking for information or clarifying doubts on issues related to the trees.
2158 trees were inventoried, in an exclusively urban context, representing 110 species, which for the AFEDT technician “was a pleasant surprise, as it is a number above expectations, that is, there is more diversity than we expected and that is very positive”.
With regard to technical aspects, this tool allows municipal services to monitor interventions more effectively, in real time and knowing in advance the true dimension of future actions, such as the exact date of pruning, or if necessary an intervention at height, allows assessing the logistical and budgetary effort that this entails.
It also enables a better understanding and monitoring of the phytosanitary status of the trees, which gives technicians a more comprehensive knowledge of the most diverse aspects related to the arboreal heritage, allowing them to make more appropriate and effective decisions.
Another interesting aspect is the perspective in three dimensions (3D), which even allows you to understand the rotation of the shadow and the exact time of its positioning, which makes it possible, for example, to plan an event knowing where to place the equipment for those who use it, do it as comfortably as possible.
The planning and design of urban spaces is something that can also be complemented using this tool.
This new technology also allows the monitoring of mobile teams, through georeferencing and synchronization with mobile phones.
Awareness actions will also be carried out, not only for the community in general, but also in schools.
INNOVATION AT THE SERVICE OF THE ENVIRONMENT
The Mayor of Baião, Paulo Pereira, expressed his satisfaction that “after the approval, last year, of the Municipal Regulation for the Management of Arvoredo, we are now presenting this instrument that not only corresponds to what the legislation imposes, and that goes much further, given that, in addition to the inventory, an application was designed that has a set of other valences that greatly enrich our ability to respond, both in terms of tree management, but also in terms of security and enlightenment of the populations”.
The fact that it allows interaction with citizens was another aspect highlighted by Paulo Pereira, since it “creates a direct channel of communication between the citizen and the services and if anyone has doubts, they can, for example, see the history and status health of any of these trees”.
The new platform can be accessed directly on the Chamber’s website, from its main page or through the link: https://au.cm-baiao.pt/
