The Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership highlights Prof. Agogino’s Street Nature Score project with BESTie Jeremy Faludi and our 2016-17 MEng team: Jacquelin Hansel (Industrial Engineering & Operations Research), Pierre Fredenucci (Mechanical Engineering, Product Design), Tinashe Giyavha (Industrial Engineering & Operations Research), Siying Chen (Civil and Environmental Engineering).

Generating “nature scores” for real estate based on the amount of nature that surrounds a property. Helping nature lovers and conscientious buyers find the perfect home. – M.Eng. Capstone Project Highlight: Street Nature Score by Iris Wu.

The goal of this project is to create a small company for environmental and social good. Street Nature Score is an online tool (in beta) using satellite data to measure urban nature for the benefit of the public, urban planners, and realtors. This project will turn the website into a small company by expanding the site’s data to commercially-viable size and by finding / developing funding sources. Students will convert geographic information systems (GIS) satellite data into Street Nature Score data for the biggest 100 cities in the US, and will pursue funding from advertising, real estate sources, and government or academic grants. The company will create environmental and social good by encouraging property owners to plant more urban nature and aiding urban planners’ benchmarking and goal-setting. Technical Challenges: Geographic information systems (GIS) use specialized software which students will learn. The online database used to generate scores and images will be tens of gigabytes in size, or more.

 

Street Nature Score team: Jacquelin Hansel (Industrial Engineering & Operations Research), Pierre Fredenucci (Mechanical Engineering, Product Design), Tinashe Giyavha (Industrial Engineering & Operations Research), Siying Chen (Civil and Environmental Engineering).

 

Image caption: Street Nature Score at the UC Berkeley Masters of Engineering Capstone Expo.