Developing a Virtual Tool for K-A-M-P.ing Plant Resources in Multi-Scale Urban Areas

Abstract

Vegetation or plant resources in urban areas are becoming scarce day by day, especially in densely populated and congested cities that are suffering from ever decreasing nature’s footprint. This syndrome is typically seen in the Indian metropolises, particularly in those cities that are experiencing an escalating population density. Vegetations are fast losing their foothold in this skewed competition with human race that have priorities opposite to harmony with nature and look at trees as hindrances against so-called development. Other than the obvious environmental and cultural benefits, human society is also failing to appreciate the ‘educational value’ of vegetations that impart significant practical understanding of nature and how it works. However, knowledge dissemination has to come through technological aid befitting the digital era that we live in today. This paper discusses a simple virtual tool that can serve this very purpose and introduce vegetation resources to the society at large in a lucid manner so as to promote KnowledgeAppreciation-Management-Protection (K-A-M-P) of vegetation resources. The vertical stages of this introduction could be basic, starting with trees and then scaled up to include all other taxonomic classes of vegetation while it can be applied across a substantial number of disciplines like park management, property/estate valuation, scientific research, planning interventions, botanical / horticultural pedagogy etc. A precedent case exists in Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, USA that is used to explore its botanical collections. The tool is essentially a web and mobile based Geographic Information System (GIS) application that can be easily used to collect information on a particular species or an individual specimen in any specific physical context, particularly nature-stressed multi-scale urban areas.