Data on 1.3 million trees are captured on NParks’ PRIME system.

1.3 million trees and almost everything you need to know about them – their species, girth, heritage status and even their location relative to Singapore’s roads and railway infrastructure – all these details are captured by the National Parks Board (NParks) on its award-winning Parks Integrated Management System (PRIME).

PRIME, which bagged the Geospatial Application for Environment award at the recent Map Asia conference in August, captures the considerable amount of geo-spatial referencing data that is generated in the management and maintenance of the trees and facilities of Singapore’s parks, roadsides, park connectors, nature reserves, nature areas, state lands and roadside verges.

“Previously, all NParks’ tree-related data was managed either through paper records or customised database software,” said Mr Simon Longman, Director of Streetscape, NParks. “This changed in 1999 when NParks made the strategic decision to develop a computerised system for the inventory of tree data.”

Hosted on an ESRI ArcGIS Server platform, PRIME integrates with the Geographical Information System (GIS) technology available for all government agencies to share information through a common platform called the Land Information Network (LandNet).

Since its implementation, NParks’ field staff have been using hand-held computers or dataloggers to log tree-related data. Once data is entered, the GIS integrates with the database to generate a unique ID for each tree, and stores it in the PRIME geodatabase.

According to NParks, GIS has proven itself an invaluable tool in the management and sharing of data pertaining to the trees under its maintenance. “NParks has leveraged the GIS technology for arboriculture, facility management, as well as biodiversity and conservation. These applications are facilitated by GIS’ ability to link attributes to location data, such as trees to parks and to roadways, and then layer that information for users to better understand and visualise how objects are spatially related,” Mr Longman said.

Other government agencies also routinely access PRIME data through LandNet: the Land Transport Authority, Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Singapore Land Authority utilise this information for safety reasons, to aid in preserving trees in the construction of new roads and  widening of existing roads.

Besides PRIME, other Singapore agencies were recognised for their groundbreaking geospatial initiatives at the Map Asia 2009 Geospatial Excellence Awards included Public Utilities Board - the national water agency, which won for Geospatial Application for Utility; and URA, which was recognised for Geospatial Application for Urban Planning.