Smart Tree Inventories Webinar: A Practical Step Toward Clearer Urban Tree Management
- greehill
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
On December 16th, greehill and Davey Resource Group will host a webinar for cities that want to manage their urban forests with greater clarity, safety, and resilience over time.
This session is designed for municipal teams who carry responsibility in the street space, under public pressure, changing climate conditions, and limited resources. We will focus on what smart tree inventories make possible in practice, and how cities are already using repeatable LiDAR data and AI analysis to plan and act with confidence.
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Why this matters right now for cities Â
Urban forestry has always been complex, but the operating conditions have changed. Heat seasons are longer, storm events are sharper and construction and utilities compete for space above and below ground. At the same time, trees are expected to do more: cool neighbourhoods, hold stormwater, reduce risk, support biodiversity, and maintain public trust.
Most cities already work with inventories, often through GIS layers or periodic surveys. These tools are essential, but they are snapshots. A city’s canopy is a living system, and it changes continuously. Trees grow, decline, recover, shift structure after storms, and respond to heat and interventions in their surroundings. Even the best static inventory will drift from reality over time.
Smart tree inventories are one way to keep that drift small. They do not replace municipal expertise, but strengthen it by making the forest’s change patterns visible at scale, so teams can prioritise earlier, plan more precise, and justify decisions with defensible data.
What smart inventories enable in municipal practice
Smart tree inventories combine repeatable LiDAR capture with AI analysis.
The outcome is a digital twin of the urban forest that reflects not only what exists today, but how it evolves season by season. For cities, that leads to multiple operational advantages.
A dataset that stays dependable across years. Instead of restarting from scratch every few years, cities can update their inventory through planned repeat scans. New information builds on what is already there. The record remains usable as streets and trees change.
Earlier visibility into safety and clearance conflicts.
Smart inventories highlight where clearance issues, structural exposure, or encroachments are becoming critical. They do not replace field inspection, but they guide attention toward the places where risk is rising first.
Change becomes measurable as a trend, not just an event.
Repeat scans reveal subtle shifts in crown volume, growth patterns, or vitality indicators before they become obvious from the ground. That supports earlier intervention and reduces reliance on service calls as the first warning sign.
Field work becomes more focused and realistic to plan.
Large inventories live or die by prioritisation. Smart data helps crews target inspections and actions precisely, so your most valuable professional time goes to the trees that need it most.
Plans and budgets become easier to defend.
Urban forestry programmes increasingly need to show measurable need and measurable outcomes. Repeatable metrics tie work plans to real conditions like clearance pressure, canopy change, and risk exposure. This strengthens internal planning and public accountability.
Smart inventories can also detect outliers automatically, flagging trees that deviate from normal parameters for specialist review, so unusual cases receive attention instead of disappearing in volume.
What you will see in the webinar Â
This is a working session, grounded in real municipal workflows. Together with Davey, we will show how smart tree inventories are already being used in U.S. cities, and what changes once reliable repeat data is part of daily management.
A key example is Las Vegas, where the city, in collaboration with Davey, is using greehill technology to build an AI-driven smart inventory that supports repeatable, operational tree management over time.
In the session, we will walk through:
how LiDAR capture and AI analysis create a stable baseline.
how repeat scans reveal change before it becomes visible on the street.
how city teams translate insights into clear priorities and work plans.
what scaling looks like in practice, including budgeting and governance.
where cities gain planning certainty and where effort can be reduced.
Who this session is for
This webinar is for municipal teams and partners responsible for trees in public space, including:
city forestry and urban tree management teams
parks and public realm departments
public works and street-space planning
asset and infrastructure management teams
climate resilience and sustainability offices
municipal service providers and consultants
We look forward to exchanging perspectives with you on December 16th.