New project TreeMania approved

Begin December 2019, the INTERREG V A/ermn Steering Committee approved the TreeMania project with a budget of ca. 1.5 million euros. The project is coordinated by lead partner GIQS and includes the objective to develop innovative sustainable methods for the cultivation, planting and care of trees and shrubs in urban areas.

The project, which is planned to run for two until three years, is being coordinated by GIQS and carried out with eleven partners from the German-Dutch border region. These include four entrepreneurs: Arnold Co-Innovatie, De Biogeoloog, Detiger and Whysor B.V.; three Dutch municipalities: Maastricht, Nijmegen and Weert; and two German municipalities: Krefeld and Mönchengladbach. GIQS project manager Dr. Oliver Breuer was very pleased after the steering committee’s positive decision: “Efficient use of natural resources is one of the most important tasks facing society today. With TreeMania, we can make an important contribution to this in the German-Dutch border region”.

The goal of TreeMania is to develop sustainable methods for the cultivation, planting and care of trees and shrubs in urban areas. The project will combine these methods with digital elements and artificial intelligence to collect soil, tree and bush health data and compile them into dashboards. This product of sustainable landscape and soil management, digital technology and state-of-the-art sensor technology makes this project approach innovative.

With TreeMania, numerous positive effects are to be achieved in the participating communities: Environmental protection, sustainable urban development (e.g. air quality, temperature balance, fine particulate pollution, groundwater abstraction, biodiversity, flood protection), making the common space more attractive to citizens and contributing to the targeted fulfilment of legal requirements.

TreeMania is implemented under the INTERREG V A programme Deutschland-Nederland and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Innovation, Digitalisierung und Energie NRW and and the provinces of Gelderland and Limburg. It is accompanied by the programme management of the euregio rhein-maas-nord.