Curio Environmental Management - Open Data Engagement Fund project

Blog post by Paul Hickey on Curio  - a more engaging approach to environmental management

Curio (www.curio.xyz) is a software platform that focuses on bringing together public communities and professional environmental operators (managers, planners etc) to provide better, more effective management of local ecosystems and green infrastructure. The service responds to a great and growing need for better stakeholder collaboration in the delivery of environmental projects, in order to achieve better, more cohesive and lasting results.

There are two core aspects to Curio. On the one hand, it provides the public with access to detailed information on local environmental features, in order that they can better understand the role and nature of local ecosystem services and biodiversity. It also enables them to contribute toward the preservation of local areas through simple monitoring and habitat mapping tasks.

On the other hand, Curio provides key services to environmental professionals in areas such as:

• Collection, hosting and analysis of urban tree inventory and environmental data
• Automated tree canopy cover and green infrastructure identification from aerial imagery
• Managed community outreach services to simplify and improve communications and engagement with the public

Curio is a flexible service that has been adapted to a range of different use cases and workflows by those who use it and is currently being employed by a range of different organisations such as:

• City authorities, property and landscape management companies in managing their tree and plant inventory
• NGOs and community groups in the delivery of environmental projects and tree planting events
• Universities and schools to manage their campus green infrastructure as well as turning their campuses into interactive classrooms for students in arboriculture, zoology, ecology etc.

Some of our commercial partners and accompanying case-studies can be seen at: https://www.curio.xyz/partners/

It is also being used by individuals in communities around the world who have a passion for caring for their local area and sustaining its biodiversity.

Through the Open Data Engagement Fund, we were supported in the development of regional dashboards that improved the way in which we facilitate local stakeholders in coordinating projects and promoting the impact and results. These dashboards essentially provide a homepage for universities, business campuses, towns, cities or any geographic area looking to promote themselves as a regional entity.

As part of the development of these dashboards, we also have integrated models for calculating the ecosystem services delivered by trees to the areas in which they grow. Services such as pollution reduction, floodwater mitigation as well as carbon storage and sequestration.

Curio is freely available for public use and super-easy to start using. Learn more about Curio on our website, www.curio.xyz