The Project

In the past, San Francisco's long-term urban forest planning was hindered because there was no way to share information, much less get the community involved. That's all changed, thanks to a significant partnership effort between Friends of the Urban Forest, the City and County of San Francisco, and Autodesk. By working together and leveraging new technology – MapGuide Open Source – the project team has created an Urban Forest Map, which digitally pinpoints the location of each tree, maintains tree data in a consistent database, and offers web access to the tree data – key for maintenance and planting efforts. The community can get involved by posting photos and stories about their own trees that they plant and map online. With the launch of this collaborative effort and the support of the Mayor's Office, a critical step has been taken to move San Francisco's urban greening efforts forward.

Reference Links

Autodesk MapGuide technology offers a flexible development platform to quickly and cost-effectively distribute geospatial data over the web.

Find out about this year's activities for San Francisco Arbor Day.

Learn more about the Open Source Geospatial Foundation at OSGeo.

Plant a tree in Second Life in honor of urban forestry.

Visit the Autodesk Sustainability Center to learn more about green practices.

Read more about this project in our case study.

The Players

Friends of the Urban Forest
Friends of the Urban Forest is a non-profit organization committed to greening San Francisco through community-based urban forestry and has planted and maintained over 40,000 trees since 1981.

City & County of San Francisco, Department of Public Works
The Department of Public Works provides services ranging from cleaning, repairing, and maintaining city streets and sewers, to greening the city's urban landscape, to designing and managing construction of public facilities.

San Francisco Mayor's Office of City Greening
The Mayor's Office of City Greening leads San Francisco's efforts in the physical greening of the public realm, focusing on the quality of streets, sidewalks, parks, and plazas.

Autodesk
Autodesk is the world leader in 2D and 3D design software helping customers experience their ideas before they are real.