What if every street tree was a story waiting to be read?

A tarot deck as urban lens: noticing care, damage, creativity, and the quiet relationships that hold cities together. Matthew López-Jensen & Lindsay Campbell show us that nothing in the city has to change — only how you look at it.

And once you start noticing… the city starts asking something back.

👉 Read the full essay: https://www.thenatureofcities.com/TNOC/2026/03/17/street-tree-tarot-is-a-tool-for-storytelling-connection-and-reflection/

#UrbanNature #StreetTrees #TNOCessay #Storytelling #CityAsText #UrbanEcology

Giving back to Calgary: an article was published today about my satellite research of the city!

It is important to me to use my knowledge as a geoscientist and environmental data scientist to help make our new home better and greener. Thanks to LiveWire Calgary for the interest in this topic!

https://livewirecalgary.com/2026/03/17/new-satellite-study-shows-calgarys-uneven-urban-greenery/

#DataScience #EnvironmentalScience #RemoteSensing #Calgary #PublicEngagement #GIS #Sustainability #RStats #MDEM #yycPlanning #UrbanPlanning #ClimateResilience #NatureBasedSolutions #UrbanEcology #GreenInfrastructure #SmartCities #CalgaryUrbanism #GreennessOfCalgary

🌸🌼Join us to learn about the newly published “Random and non-random variation in flower colour along an urban-rural gradient in the introduced mustard Hesperis matronalis” in @AnnBot by Katherine Maunder and co-authors. 🧵 (1/9)

👉 https://doi.org/qtm4

#Plantscience #AoBpapers #UrbanEvolution #PlantEcology #EvolutionaryBiology #FlowerColour #UrbanEcology

11-Mar-2026
Study finds function–#evolution trade-off in #urban park #soil #microbes

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1119869

#science #ecology #microbiology #urbanEcology #urbanEvolution

🔥 Mapping the Urban Thermal Environment: Summer 2025 Land Surface Temperature (LST) in Calgary

I am sharing the latest results of my spatial data analysis, focusing on the intra-urban thermal zones across Calgary, AB. The attached choropleth map and bar chart detail the average Land Surface Temperature. While the map shows whole city area, the bar chart made specifically for built-up residential communities. To ensure accurate and fair comparison, undeveloped greenfield areas and strictly industrial zones were filtered out.

❗ Based on the Summer 2025 satellite composite data:
🔴 The highest average LST values among residential areas were recorded in Rundle, Manchester, Marlborough, Martindale, and Castleridge.
🔵 The lowest average LST values were observed in Rideau Park, Roxboro, Discovery Ridge, Eau Claire, and Osprey Hill.

Find more interesting posts with hashtag #GreennessOfCalgary

#RStats #GISChat #QGIS #SpatialAnalysis #RemoteSensing #EarthObservation #UrbanEcology #OpenScience #YYC #Alberta #Canada

I've been counting birds on my bike work commute between Christchurch and Lincoln, NZ, since 2003. On Friday, I counted my *first ever* Kōtuku Ngutupapa, Royal Spoonbill, on the route.

It was feeding in a paddock that had been recently scraped clear preparing it for a housing subdivision, but in the meantime had filled with water after a heavy rain. There are also restored wetlands nearby that I hope was what attracted it in. Perhaps there will be more.

#birds #nz #spoonbill #EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #UrbanEcology

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/340743507

New analysis published:
“How Much Greener Is Calgary in 2025?”

Using Sentinel-2 data (~8.5M pixels), I calculated NDVI change (ΔNDVI) between the 2024 drought and the rainy 2025 season across all Calgary communities.

Clear spatial pattern:
• Strong rebound in mature tree neighborhoods
• Limited change in developing, impervious-heavy zones

Method: R (terra, tidyverse) + QGIS
Community boundaries: Open Calgary

Article + interactive table: https://www.datastory.org.ua/how-much-greener-is-calgary-in-2025/

#RemoteSensing #NDVI #OpenData #UrbanEcology #RStats #QGIS #GreennessOfCalgary