Brief description of the organization
Tree Trust is an Ontario-based environmental non-profit focused on protecting mature “legacy” trees through arborist care, public education, and community fundraising. Started through the Elora Environment Centre in 2019, it helps local chapters identify significant older trees, raise money for their care, and preserve tree canopy across communities. Its core idea is simple: planting new trees matters, but protecting big, old trees is also critical because they store carbon, support biodiversity, manage stormwater, and provide benefits young trees cannot yet match.
Problem area
The project will begin with a needs assessment to help Tree Trust clarify what evidence, data, and outputs would be most useful for advancing its mission, supporting funding conversations, and strengthening the case for mature tree care.
The project should remain open to the strongest avenue students uncover. That may include looking at what other countries, municipalities, and leading researchers are doing, then packaging the best current thinking on mature tree care into something useful for Tree Trust and its arborists.
The central problem students will explore is whether mature urban forests are declining, how that decline can be measured, and what this means for communities, municipalities, and organizations like Tree Trust. Many municipalities report tree planting numbers, but those numbers do not always capture the loss, illness, or decline of mature trees, which provide the greatest canopy, cooling, carbon, stormwater, and community benefits.
Students will investigate how municipalities currently quantify urban forest health and change, what data is available to assess canopy loss or improvement over time, and whether Tree Trust can use this evidence to better demonstrate the need for mature tree preservation and care.
Main objectives
- Conduct a needs assessment with Tree Trust staff, board members, municipal contacts, and arborists to determine what evidence would be most useful and credible.
- Identify how municipalities and researchers measure urban forest decline, canopy change, tree health, and mature tree loss.
- Analyze available data across a focused sample of Ontario communities, ideally including a mix of urban, suburban, and smaller or rural communities.
- Compare historical and current canopy conditions using available aerial imagery, satellite data, LiDAR, municipal open data, or other credible sources.
- Determine whether mature canopy is declining, improving, or shifting, and identify possible explanations.
- Produce a clear final report, summary findings, and communications-ready statistics Tree Trust can use with funders, partners, municipalities, and the public.
- Help Tree Trust position mature tree care as a necessary complement to tree planting, since newly planted trees can take decades to deliver the same benefits as established mature trees.
Scope of work
- Complete a needs assessment with Tree Trust staff, board members, municipal partners, and arborists to clarify the intended use of the project, the best geographic focus, and the most valuable final outputs.
- Review how municipalities, conservation authorities, academic researchers, and international best-practice organizations measure urban forest decline, canopy cover, tree health, and mature tree loss.
- Identify available data sources, including municipal open data, aerial imagery, satellite imagery, LiDAR, urban forest plans, canopy studies, heat mapping, and tree inventories.
- Select a manageable group of communities for analysis, potentially including Tree Trust communities and a mix of urban and rural contexts.
- Compare historical and current canopy indicators to determine whether mature tree cover has changed over time.
- Interview arborists or municipal forestry staff to help interpret findings, especially around tree illness, maintenance gaps, species decline, development pressure, and the difference between planting new trees and preserving mature ones.
- Create a final report, executive summary, visual evidence package, and a set of clear statistics or messages that Tree Trust can use to support advocacy, media, partner development, and funding applications.
Deliverables
- Report
- Website
- Presentation
- Resources
- Survey tools
- New protocols/processes
Team meeting frequency
Monthly
Skills and training required
- Research and analytical skills
- Environmental scan and literature review skills
- GIS and spatial analysis
- Data visualization
- Interview and stakeholder engagement skills
- Basic understanding of urban forestry, climate resilience, and municipal planning
- Report writing and presentation skills
- Ability to translate technical findings into plain-language insights
Resources required
- Tree Trust staff, board members, and arborists for interviews
- Municipal contacts or municipal forestry staff, where available
- Public aerial imagery, satellite imagery, LiDAR, or canopy data
- Municipal urban forest strategies, climate plans, asset management plans, and open data portals
- GIS software such as ArcGIS, QGIS, Google Earth Engine, or similar tools
- Data analysis and visualization tools
- University library databases and academic research support
- Tree Trust brand or communications materials for final presentation outputs
NDA or a commercialization agreement for this project?
Yes