KaarbonTech and Kew Gardens announce new Tree Management Research Group
As a company committed to sustainability and environmental protection, data specialist KaarbonTech recognises the crucial role that trees play in our ecosystem. Recently announcing their partnership with the Royal Botanical Kew Gardens, together they are establishing the Tree Management Research Group, dedicated to sharing valuable data to support urban forests.
The partnership between KaarbonTech and Royal Botanical Kew Gardens is particularly significant, due to KaarbonTech’s customer base, broadly comprising local authorities. Early in the partnership it was evident that KaarbonTech has the relevant technology, and were already working with the local authority market, making them the perfect conduit to share the research that the Kew Garden scientists had undertaken on the impact of climate change on the UK tree stock.
Recognising the impact of climate change
The impact of climate change poses a significant global crisis, and KaarbonTech believes that it is imperative to use all available data and research to ensure the survival and success of trees. The Tree Management Research Group has been created to enable sharing of crucial data through technology and to provide local authorities with the most useful information on which to base their tree planting and maintenance programmes.
KaarbonTech has over 10 years of expertise in delivering software and data management solutions, holding a deep understanding of the needs of their local authority customers. Recognising the best way to capture data, KaarbonTech uses that data to help local authorities set highway works programmes in simple-to-view applications. This deep knowledge has led them to develop software that connects data from many sources, including open source and local data, to provide local authorities with the necessary information, including transport corridors and their limitations, the urban environment, anomalies, flooding information, existing tree planting, and customer complaints. All this information allows comprehensive, accurate and proactive maintenance programmes to be created.
Working in partnership
Royal Botanical Kew Gardens’ scientific team has been researching the long-term effect of climate change on its tree collection of 2000 species and also a climate assessment of local authority tree collections. Considering highways trees, they have reported that 42% would comfortably survive in a changing climate, 17% are on the edge of the range, and 27% of nursery stock available to local authorities is outside of the range, meaning they would not survive. This suggests that local authorities should reconsider their planting for the future. By joining forces with Kew Gardens and serving as the conduit to process, visualise, and produce actionable insights from their research data, KaarbonTech is facilitating an avenue for free-flowing information and joining up data to increase success.
Kevin Martin, Head of Tree Collections at Royal Botanical Kew, stressed, “We understand the critical role that trees play in our environment, and we are committed to ensuring their survival and success in the face of climate change. Our research on the long-term effects of climate change on our tree collection, has shown that new species need to be considered for planting in urban areas. By collaborating with KaarbonTech and sharing our research data with local authorities, through the Tree Management Research Group, we hope to equip decision-makers with the tools they need, to make informed choices for successful tree planting and maintenance programmes.”
Taking action
At the end of January this year, KaarbonTech hosted ‘Tree SMART Live’ at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, where the Tree Management Research Group was launched. Over 60 highway authority delegates came together to hear from tree specialists and through round table discussions, debated what data and research would assist them in increased success in tree management.
Understanding the critical role that trees play in our environment, KaarbonTech is committed to ensuring their survival and success in the face of climate change. By collaborating with Royal Botanical Kew, and sharing valuable data with local authorities, through the Tree Management Research Group, KaarbonTech hopes to equip decision-makers with the tools they need to make informed choices for successful tree planting and maintenance programmes.