Insights
All stories
How National Distributors Decide Where to Build Next
Where a distribution center goes matters. See how nationwide building, land cover, and parking data help distributors identify the right sites faster.
API for EarthDefine Building Footprints 3D
EarthDefine's Building Footprints 3D API: on-demand access to 200M+ US building footprints with height, stories, roof slope, area, and ground elevation, returned by address in und…
Precision Meets Speed: EarthDefine Launches Building Footprints 3D API
Get instant access to 200M+ high-precision 3D building footprints across the US. Query by address or coordinate and get heights, roof slopes, and elevations in under 100ms. No bot…
What is GIS?
GIS turns location into insight: layers of elevation, buildings, and land cover that answer questions a flat address list never could.
What Precision Means in the Private Sector
A flood policy priced on the wrong side of a property line isn't a rounding error. It's the difference between a fair premium and a claim nobody budgeted for.
Built Environment vs. Canopy Cover: A Reality Check on Urban Wildfire
Cal Poly data shows building density, rather than tree canopy, drives urban fire loss . This suggests that clearing trees may not be the most effective policy for reducing fire da…
Have you mapped it? Grant Writing Edition
Stop describing problems in paragraphs. Win your next academic grant by mapping them! Combine free USDA, Census, and historical data to show reviewers the why, where, and how in o…
Have you mapped it? Methods Section edition
Stop fighting your methods section. Map your data first to isolate variables, dodge peer-reviewer traps, and build bulletproof research models.
Have you mapped it? Healthcare edition
Use spatial mapping to bridge the gap between overdose hotspots and life-saving naloxone distribution to guide effective public health interventions.
Have You Mapped It? Entrepreneur Edition
See how spatial data transforms public safety gaps into an impactful startup framework, protecting children and building community trust where school buses are getting axed.
DepaveLA: Mapping Excess Pavement to Unlock Urban Resilience
LA County’s pavement is 44% unnecessary, finds a new report. High-res land cover data maps urban heat/flood hotspots, unlocking greener, resilient cities.
We wish everyone knew GIS could help with that
A LinkedIn series launch using a US tree canopy map to argue GIS is for everyone, not just mapmakers. Each post follows a why/what/how structure across six audiences, from academi…
Urban Water Journal
From site-scale to landscape-scale: stormwater benefits of urban trees with SWMM-Canopy
A new process-based tool, SWMM-Canopy, models how urban trees reduce stormwater runoff and, applied in a California case study, lets planners evaluate the hydrologic and economic …
CAL FIRE
California’s Canopy Evolution: Mapping the Future of Urban Forests
Discover how California is using next-generation interactive mapping to visualize tree canopy changes and build heat-resilient communities.
Urban Forestry & Urban Greening
Disparities in NatureScore across U.S. public schools: implications for environmental and socioeconomic equity
A national analysis of 65,406 U.S. schools finds that nature access (measured by NatureScore™) is unequally distributed, with lower scores at schools serving more economically dis…
Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
Modeling the relationship between urban tree canopy, landscape heterogeneity, and land surface temperature: A machine learning approach
A machine-learning study across nine U.S. cities in different climate zones finds that urban tree canopy consistently lowers land surface temperature, but the spatial configuratio…
The State Port Pilot
Oak Island Tree Canopy Study: Progress Made, New Concerns Emerge
The Oak Island tree canopy study reveals positive environmental progress, yet highlights ongoing concerns regarding development and deforestation risks.
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Flood Buyouts and Green Infrastructure: Effects on Local Property Values
Research in Harris County shows nearby flood buyouts can reduce property values and the tax base, but tree canopy coverage helps mitigate these effects and boosts resilience .
Frontiers in Sustainable Cities
Pursuit of environmental justice in urban forest planning and practice
Interviews with urban foresters in San Francisco and Seattle reveal how each city pursues environmental justice differently (San Francisco emphasizing distributional justice, Seat…
9News
Boulder Map Highlights Key Areas Needing New Trees and Best Shade Locations
Discover Boulder's new interactive map targeting key areas for tree planting and shading to boost the city's urban canopy.
University of Washington Evans School
Lakewood Urban Forestry Implementation Guide
This report provides the City of Lakewood with an urban forestry program implementation guide to meet its 2021 climate plan goals of expanding tree canopy cover from 26% to 40% by…
PR Newswire
EarthDefine Maps 183M 3D Buildings for 5G & Insurance
AI startup EarthDefine has expanded its 3D building database to over 183 million U.S. structures. The data helps telecom companies optimize 5G networks and P&C insurers improve un…
Maui NOW
How the Hawaiʻi Tree Canopy Viewer Shapes Our Green Future
The Hawaiʻi Tree Canopy Viewer tracks state tree resources to guide planting and combat canopy loss. Developed by state and federal partners.
Sustainable Cities and Society
Feasibility of afforestation as an equitable nature-based solution in urban areas
A framework combining census, satellite, and derived data identifies suitable urban afforestation sites in California, finding room for 36 million additional trees that could cut …
San Francisco Chronicle
Oakland Trees: Where They Are, Where They're Lacking
Chronicle analysis of Oakland's urban tree canopy using EarthDefine data, examining where trees are concentrated and which neighborhoods lack adequate cover.
The New York Times
Where Should You Live? (Quiz Methodology)
Methodology behind the NYT's interactive 'Where Should You Live?' quiz. Cites EarthDefine tree canopy data as one of 35 criteria used to score and rank U.S. cities and towns.
PR Newswire
Regrid™ launches Nationwide Land Parcel Data + Matched Building Footprints
Regrid partner EarthDefine to launch a spatial dataset merging 156M building footprints with 150M nationwide land parcels. This maps 99% of the US population into one combined pro…
The New York Times
Since When Have Trees Existed Only for Rich Americans?
A beautifully illustrated opinion piece using EarthDefine's tree canopy data. Shows disparities across the U.S.: wealthier, whiter neighborhoods have far more tree canopy than low…
Geospatial World
PlanIT Geo & EarthDefine Partner for On-Demand Canopy Data
PlanIT Geo and EarthDefine have partnered to launch Canopy as a Service (CaaS), pairing high-resolution tree data with TreePlotter software for affordable urban forestry planning.
Geospatial World
PlanIT Geo and EarthDefine Partnership: AI-Driven Canopy Analysis Creates On-Demand Data
PlanIT Geo and EarthDefine announce a partnership combining TreePlotter CANOPY software with EarthDefine's nationwide high-resolution tree canopy data into a Canopy as a Service o…
EarthDefine Maps U.S. Built-Up Surfaces and Parking Lots with AI
EarthDefine used AI to map all U.S. built-up surfaces and parking lots at 1-meter resolution, giving communities 95% accurate data to model flood risks, heat islands, and urbaniza…
Geo Week News
How EarthDefine Uses LiDAR, Aerial Imaging and AI to Expand Their Building Footprint Database
In-depth feature on how EarthDefine uses LiDAR, AI, and 60cm aerial imagery to build and update its 156M+ building footprint database, refreshed twice yearly across the continenta…
San Francisco Chronicle
Do San Francisco's Trees Depend on the Wealth of Its Residents?
Chronicle investigation into San Francisco's 669,000 trees using EarthDefine canopy data. Finds tree cover closely tracks neighborhood wealth, with affluent areas far greener than…
PR Newswire
EarthDefine Expands Property Information and Building Footprint Geocoding
EarthDefine expanded its AI database to over 156M US building footprints, giving insurers rooftop accuracy to better evaluate wildfire and weather risks.
PR Newswire
US Tree Map: EarthDefine Creates the Most Detailed Map of America's Trees
EarthDefine announces its US Tree Map: 550M+ acres of tree cover mapped at 900x the resolution of prior national datasets, using AI to process 120TB of aerial imagery.
Remote Sensing
Tree, Shrub, and Grass Classification Using Only RGB Images
A deep learning method (DeepLabV3+) classifies trees, shrubs, and grass from RGB images alone, with median frequency weighting improving accuracy for underrepresented classes like…
Climate
Air-Temperature Response to Neighborhood-Scale Variations in Albedo (Reflected Solar Energy) and Canopy Cover in the Real World
Fine-resolution WRF modeling combined with car-mounted mobile temperature measurements in Los Angeles shows that increasing surface albedo and tree canopy cover delivers significa…
PR Newswire
EarthDefine Maps High Resolution Tree Cover for New Jersey and Virginia
EarthDefine maps New Jersey and Virginia trees at 1m resolution, finding NJ has 54.9% tree canopy, significantly higher than prior estimates. Extends EarthDefine's growing state c…
PR Newswire
EarthDefine Maps High Resolution Tree Cover for Ohio and Pennsylvania
EarthDefine releases comprehensive 1m-resolution tree canopy datasets for Ohio and Pennsylvania, using terabytes of infrared imagery and LiDAR to map all trees and canopy heights …
PR Newswire
EarthDefine Releases High Resolution Tree Map for Minnesota
EarthDefine maps Minnesota's trees at 1m resolution with 98% accuracy, 30x sharper than existing state datasets, and publishes an interactive per-capita tree cover map for all MN …
PR Newswire
EarthDefine Releases High Resolution Tree Map for California
EarthDefine releases a statewide 1m-resolution tree canopy dataset for California, built on color infrared imagery and LiDAR, supporting urban forestry and wildfire risk applicati…
UC Davis: Information Center for the Environment.
Biomass, Carbon Sequestration, and Avoided Emissions: Assessing the Role of Urban Trees in California
This collaborative report by UC Davis, the USDA Forest Service, and CAL FIRE assesses the current status of urban tree canopy and its benefits across California, while identifying…
Geospatial World
EarthDefine Maps Tree Cover for Ohio and Pennsylvania
Geospatial World covers EarthDefine's Ohio and Pennsylvania tree canopy datasets, highlighting the 1m resolution and 95%+ accuracy that bridges gaps in national land cover databas…
GIS for Positive Change
Two restoration stories, Oak Island's tree canopy and Washington's Dam removal, share one lesson: map what's actually there before you act. You can't manage what you can't see. I…
USDA Forest Service Region 5
California's Urban Tree Canopy
USDA Forest Service Region 5 resource page on California's urban tree canopy, featuring EarthDefine data to support state and local forestry planning efforts.
