Import/Esri Community Trees

This is a plan for the addition of tree data for selected areas of interest (AOIs) around the world. This effort builds on various assisted mapping projects in which buildings and addresses data has been prepared for mappers to add to OpenStreetMap via OSM editors (see Data Updates section below). For a list of other Esri-curated datasets that are available for mapping, please see Esri ArcGIS Datasets.

Goals

The goal of this effort is to add trees to OpenStreetMap for various AOIs around the world for which tree data has been created by Esri Community Maps Contributors using the Community Maps Editor app. These AOIs might include schools and universities, recreational areas, tourism areas, business campuses, and more. The goal would be to take advantage of this existing tree data where it exists and would add value to OpenStreetMap.

Schedule

Data preparation was completed in early May 2022. The edits to OSM would be performed incrementally by OSM mappers over the remainder of 2022 and beyond, starting after data is reviewed by the OSM community.

Source

The source tree data were assembled in late April 2022, by exporting Esri Community Maps AOIs data from ArcGIS Online.

The processed trees data that could be added to OSM are available to access on ArcGIS Online (see Esri Community Trees). You can Open in Map Viewer to preview (click features to view tags) or sign in to export data for offline use.

OSM ODbL Compliance: Yes, the data is provided under a CC-BY 4.0 license, with explicit waiver for use in OpenStreetMap as defined by LWG.

Data Preparation

The processed tree data referenced above were created by transforming the fields in the source data into the expected tags (i.e. key'value pairs) for this type of data (e.g. natural, genus, species). Below are a few notes specific to the Esri Community Trees data.

• The processed tree data contains 74,360 trees, most of which do not already existing as tree features in OSM. The data is provided for several dozen AOIs around the world, which can be viewed in the Esri Community Trees layer.
• The data includes a few fields (natural, genus, species) that have been prepared to be added as tags in OSM. The Esri Community Trees item description explains how the tree types that were created by Esri Community Maps contributors were transformed into the values for genus and species.

Data Conflation

Existing tree features in OSM will not be replaced. The plan is to supplement tree features that exist in OpenStreetMap with additional tree features that are available in the Esri Community Trees dataset where those would add value to OSM.

Data Updates

The plan is to perform the updates using a new version of RapiD and an updated Map with AI plugin for JOSM (see Esri blog post on new tools in OSM editors for more detail). The new tools enable OSM mappers to access ArcGIS Datasets hosted in ArcGIS Online and select individual features to use while editing OSM. The mapper is able to select a feature, review and edit the feature geometry and available fields, and then save their edits.

The mapper has the benefit of using existing features that have been created by the data provider, along with their available field values that have been pre-processed by Esri, while also being able to compare that feature with existing OSM data and imagery to ensure it is accurate and consistent. The data source used for the edit will be added as a tag to each feature that is saved as part of a changeset unless deleted by mapper.

Accounts

The plan is for OSM mappers to use their standard OSM accounts if they are editing with RapiD and JOSM editors for OSM and editing individual features. However, if OSM mappers wish to do any 'bulk' edits or imports where they do not examine individual features, then they should create and use new dedicated import accounts (e.g. <username>_<community>_import) for those changesets.