Integration of hydrological and growth data into a geographical information system

摘要

A geographical information system (GIS) was created, comprising of a digital map of a 0.5 km x 0.5 km square of a suburban area of Chelmsford, a town in South East England. The map included: information on the size and position of each tree within the surveyed area; the physical make-up of the landscape and the standard soil moisture deficit for the area. The landscape in a 3 m radius around the position of each tree was described in terms of the amount of hard landscape with less than 95% permeability to water. The physical information from the GIS was related to local climatic conditions through weather data from tile local weather-station. The effects of the physical environment and the local climate were compared to the growth rate of the trees in the surveyed area. No relationship between % hard covering and growth of laterals was found when data for all trees were considered together but the genus Tilia showed a possible negative relationship (R~2 = 0.616).