Behind the Symposium: University of Vermont’s Spatial Analysis Lab

We’d like to give you some more context into one of the presenters who will be with us for the Tree Canopy Symposium on October 18th. Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne will be leading an overview of tree canopy analyses and canopy cover trends in the District since 2006, based off of his work in the University of Vermont’s Spatial Analysis Lab, and we thought it appropriate to give you some background into his work and that of the Spatial Analysis Lab.

Jarlath is the director of the university’s Spatial Analysis Lab, and over the years his research has focused on a variety of applications of geospatial technology: environmental justice, wildlife habitat mapping, high-elevation forest decline, land cover change detection, community health, and water quality modeling. Considered an expert on object-based image analysis (OBIA), a large body of his current work is in urban tree canopy assessments; he also serves as the lead geospatial analyst for the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station’s People and their Environments group (NRS-9). Prior to the University of Vermont, he served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps for over a decade, with tours in East Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia, co-directing their imagery intelligence assets.

The Spatial Analysis Lab that Jarlath heads up is a GIS research laboratory located within the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources. Supported entirely by grants and contracts for research, the lab is filled with some of the latest technologies in the field that help them apply different elements of GIS, remote sensing, and spatial statistics to problems in natural resource ecology and natural resources planning. The Lab has worked with Casey Trees since 2006, compiling data that gets used by our Technical Services and Research department for countless purposes – one of which is the yearly analysis that comprises our Tree Report Card. For more information on their current and past projects aside from Casey Trees, check out their website.

Jarlath will join us October 18th to discuss how the University of Vermont’s Spatial Analysis Lab goes about their work, and what their results say about the District’s tree canopy trends.

Make sure that you’re there to learn and engage in the conversation – the more voices, the better!

The symposium will be held at the FHI 360 Conference Center, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. There will be a reception afterwards at the Hillyer Art Space from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Register for your tickets to either event (or both) so that you can be a part of the discussion, and the future.

Photo credit: UVM Spatial Analysis Lab.

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