Can Digital Twins and Tree Mapping Help Cities Adapt to Climate Change?

Artificial intelligence (AI) could go a long way toward supporting trees and vegetation in cities. Trees have long been associated with sustainability and mitigating climate change. But as the climate has shifted into crisis mode, trees are integral to adaptation.

Their shade reduces ambient air and surface temperatures, diminishing the intensity of urban heat islands. Their leaves give off moisture that cools the air as it evaporates. And their canopies reduce the rate at which stormwater reaches the ground, while their roots encourage better absorption than soil alone, lessening the chance and intensity of floods. AI can strengthen trees’ ability to aid in climate adaptation and support sustainability in the process.

Companies are already using AI in natural spaces. The tech company IBM uses it to aid Kenya’s reforestation efforts, thanks to data from NASA satellites. Likewise, the infrastructure engineering software company Bentley Systems offers a program that creates AI-powered digital twins of cities for municipal planning and infrastructure management, including green infrastructure like trees.

Digital twins are accurate, virtual representations of real-world things that use real-time data to simulate the outcomes of potential scenarios. Pairing them with AI allows them to learn from the data they receive to offer better insights and predictions. 

“We see more and more focus moving from a sustainability angle — or I would say, from a net zero angle — to a resilience angle,” Rodrigo Fernandes, the director of empowering sustainable development goals at Bentley Systems, told TriplePundit. “We see more customers and more users focused on ensuring that the infrastructure we have is ready … to adapt and to be resilient to the challenges that we will have in the future and the present because of climate change.”

Climate change puts more pressure on all types of infrastructure, from bridges to roads to greenery, he said. Digital twins aid in monitoring and inspecting each of these to support maintenance and planning. Municipalities can use them to create a digital map of the trees and vegetation in an area, a tech-enabled version of a process known as tree mapping. 

The Singapore Land Authority uses the company’s digital twin software to do just that, mapping out its entire infrastructure, including the exact amount of trees and other greenery, Fernandes said. This can be done through satellite data or by putting sensors on cars, drones or, in Singapore’s case, aircraft.

“Our software [is used] to integrate, aggregate the data, and create the map,” he said. “They can easily quantify the amount of square meters or volume … [to] quantify their green infrastructure.” 

These results are used to plan additional green infrastructure projects like increasing shade, improving air quality, mitigating flooding and more. Perry, Iowa also uses a digital twin to manage its man-made infrastructure and green spaces, including projects that restore natural spaces and reduce non-native species. 

The software is also valuable for monitoring the health of existing trees. The AI can be trained to recognize tree health via the color of its leaves, Fernandes said. “In the case of Mendoza, Argentina, they had one million trees, so they applied it to the whole tree infrastructure,” he said. “Then they can use it to define actionable decisions like proactive maintenance.”

For tree mapping with digital twins to expand dramatically, a cultural shift is needed, Fernandes said. While city management might be aware of the need for a map in terms of sustainability and adaptation, they often have more pressing matters that need to be dealt with first. Nor is the availability of such technologies fully understood. 

“They might think, ‘Okay we need to put more trees in a city eventually because we see the advantages of cooling, increasing quality of life, air pollution, and air quality improvement and all of that,” he said. But “they are simply not aware of digital technologies as an enabler.” 

It remains to be seen whether municipalities will adopt such software as a part of sustainability and climate change mitigation on a large scale.