GPS-based census of trees begins in Raj Bhavan

The first GPS-based census of trees in the Raj Bhavan premises here was launched today in the presence of Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao.
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) Additional Municipal Commissioner S V R Srinivas enumerated a coconut tree by taking its coordinates to mark the formal launch of the census.
The enumerators of BMC will collect details of nearly 3,000 trees in the Raj Bhavan during the next two weeks.
On the occasion, the Governor said that Raj Bhavan is one of the few hot-spots of bio-diversity in Mumbai housing some of the rare trees.
He sought BMC's cooperation in increasing the forest cover and planting rare species in the Raj Bhavan premises.

Srinivas said that the census will enable the BMC to collect, store, check and analyse the tree data at the click of a button.

The earlier census was conducted manually in 2008 when the tree count in Mumbai was 19 lakh while Raj Bhavan had 3,000 trees.
This is for the first time that the BMC is conducting the IT-based tree census in Mumbai City.
It involves GPS based tracking and GIS mapping of trees.
The paperless exercise involves physical survey and recording of individual trees in the defined area.
Details like spatial location, botanical name, common name, girth, height, canopy diameter, canopy type, condition (healthy, average, poor), family/genus, phenology, economic importance (medicinal, ornamental, fruiting), flowering and several such things are collected.