TreeCity is a cross-border collaborative initiative running from September 2025 to August 2027, as part of the 4th round of the Smart City Challenge. It is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research through the FinEst Targa Linna tippkeskuse piloodiprogramm.
The project brings together partners from Belgium, Estonia, and Finland, with the shared goal of laying the foundation for co-created digital and operational tools to better protect urban trees. These tools aim to support urban ecosystems while ensuring flexibility and efficiency in the delivery of urban projects within increasingly complex environments.
We are living in an increasingly urbanized world. Belgium is now 98% urbanized, while Estonia and Finland follow closely at 69.8% and 86%, respectively. With this intensifying urbanization come numerous challenges to livability, especially around air quality, environmental sustainability, and human well-being.
Urban trees are essential to addressing these challenges. They not only improve air quality and contribute to carbon sequestration and water retention but also play a key role in enhancing physical and mental health. Their presence cools down overheated city zones, enriches biodiversity by offering habitats for pollinators and birds, and contributes significantly to citizens’ perceived quality of life.
Recognizing these benefits, many cities are embedding ambitious urban greening strategies into their long-term plans. For example, Brussels is aiming to plant an additional 100,000 trees in the coming years to support climate resilience and well-being.
Tree Root Systems: Living Architecture in Tension with Urban Infrastructure
Yet the health and resilience of urban trees depend not just on their canopies but on what lies beneath the surface. Tree roots are critical to a tree’s survival, but they face mounting challenges in urban contexts due to restricted soil volumes, compaction, and conflicts with underground utilities. Hidden from view, root systems form intricate, responsive structures shaped by the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the soil.
In densely built environments—where soils are often sealed, fragmented, or disturbed—roots become especially vulnerable. Effective urban vegetation management therefore requires deeper insight into root system dynamics: how they grow, adapt, and survive in constrained and hostile underground conditions.
To tackle this, MLG together with FARI will work on the development of algorithmic 3D models of tree roots, designed for integration into urban digital twins. These models will be supported by data acquisition pipelines, predictive growth simulations, and interoperability frameworks tailored to diverse city data formats. Working in tandem with above-ground tree models, they will enrich digital urban ecosystems—enabling cities to simulate, visualize, and interact with root systems in 3D environments, VR/AR platforms, and planning tools.
This robust, adaptive approach makes the TreeCity modeling tool a valuable asset for urban planners, arborists, engineers, and designers. It supports proactive planning, helps mitigate conflicts between roots and infrastructure, and strengthens the integration of living systems into the evolving, data-rich landscape of the smart city.
Project partners
FinEst Centre For Smart Cities, City of Helsinki, City of Tallin, ULiège, Paradigm, Herbarium.ai , FARI—AI for the Common Good Institute Brussels (ULB and VUB).