Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 44(6): November 2018 et al. 2016). In urban forestry, volunteers have been used to inventory street trees (Bloniarz and Ryan 1996; Cowett and Bassuk 2012), scout for diseases (Nannini et al. 1998), and generate the data needed to run i-Tree ecosystem analyses (Casey Trees 2017; Morgenroth and Östberg 2017). Despite the potential educational and eco- nomic advantages of working with volunteer data collectors, citizen science poses several challenges. Data quality is a fundamental con- cern in large-scale citizen-science events (Wei- gelhofer and Pölz et al. 2016). This noted, data sets produced by volunteer citizen scientists can be on par with data collected by professionals with regard to both quality and biases (Kosmala et al. 2016). If identified, biases and errors in volunteer-derived data can be mitigated sta- tistically or by further assessing the skills or knowledge required for data collection (Kos- mala et al. 2016). Some find quality data solu- tions through the use of registered participants and continuous training programs (Weigelhofer and Pölz et al. 2016). However, this approach requires more effort from volunteers, and it may be difficult to sustain in the long-term. In contrast, one-day data collection events can harness volunteers’ initial interest in a proj- ect while avoiding the potential fatigue asso- ciated with sustained monitoring. Given the truncated measurement period, the training associated with a one-day data collection event is generally scaled down. Researchers speculate that the volunteers engaging in civic science projects require a detailed training session(s), to accurately obtain quality data (Ratnieks et al. 2016). What constitutes a detailed train- ing session is unclear. Beyond reduced train- ing, one-day data collection events (unless repeated periodically) can limit opportunities for participants to gain experience with the methods employed. Once first-time volunteers have gained proficiency in the measurements and data collection methods, the event is over. While one can debate the benefits and draw- backs of citizen-science-derived data, the use of volunteers may ultimately prove to be the most (or only) feasible means for underfunded natural resource agencies and urban forest programs to implement on-the-ground monitoring. Mobile 249 urban forest inventorying applications are avail- able to facilitate tree mapping and data collec- tion (Romolini et al. 2012). Like other mobile applications, these programs are designed to be intuitive and can be linked to internal and online references to assist users in making measure- ments and proper identifications. In this study, researchers reviewed records from a one-day student-inventorying event on a college campus. The student-led event was part of a seasonal day of service (Arbor Day) and was intended to highlight the recent release of TampaTreeMap, a local adaptation of an open source tree data col- lection and mapping program (OpenTreeMap, Azavea, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.). Data collected as part of this one-day event were extracted from the online database and veri- fied by a more rigorously trained quality control team for accuracy with regard to tree location, species, and measurements. This observational study investigates whether citizen scientists can conduct accurate measurements, after minimal instruction, when assisted by a mobile mapping application designed to facilitate crowdsourcing. While past works have documented the success of longer term inventorying programs (where teams of volunteers work for days or weeks), this inventory event was limited to a single day. Additionally, most assessments of volunteer- derived data were conducted in temperate North America. This study was conducted in a sub- tropical climate, providing a different range of species and species-related measurement chal- lenges than have been previously documented. Moreover, many past studies have been con- ducted on street trees with more clearly defined planting spaces (e.g., tree lawns/terraces). The inventorying event documented here was conducted in a park-like, campus environment, which neces- sitated a GPS- or reference-object-based location system. Ultimately, this work investigates a real- world inventory effort, offering insights into the value and limitations of one-day data collection events and crowdsourcing technology designed to help populate urban forest inventory databases. METHODS On 17 January 2015 (Arbor Day in Florida, U.S.), a one-day volunteer tree inventory event was ©2018 International Society of Arboriculture
November 2018
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