Attempt to map the blooming time of cherry blossoms from photos of Japanese 'hanami' posted on SNS


by

megttan

In Japan, the cherry blossom front moves north around April, and 'hanami' is held all over the country, where friends get together and have a party while watching the cherry blossoms. In recent years, as the performance of smartphone cameras has improved and SNS has spread, a large number of photos of cherry blossoms seen at cherry blossom viewing will be posted on SNS from mid-April. A research team at Monash University in Australia has announced a study to map the flowering time of cherry blossoms from photos of cherry blossom viewing in Japan posted on SNS.

The spatiotemporal signature of cherry blossom flowering across Japan revealed via analysis of social network site images - ScienceDirect
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0367253023001019

Social media snaps map the sweep of Japan's cherry blossom season in unprecedented detail
https://theconversation.com/social-media-snaps-map-the-sweep-of-japans-cherry-blossom-season-in-unprecedented-detail-206574

The research team used photos posted on the photo-sharing site Flickr between 2008 and 2018 and the time and location data embedded in the photos to find out what impact climate change will have on cherry blossoms in Japan. I checked to see if I could get it.

The research team collected tagged photos from Flickr such as 'Sakura' and 'Cherry Blossom', analyzed them with image recognition technology, and automatically excluded images that seemed unrelated to cherry blossoms. In addition, it seems that many of the photos excluded at this time were photos of autumn leaves hunting.


by

Ikusuki

Next, we put together the shooting locations and time stamps of the remaining photos, mapped the timing of cherry blossoms blooming for each season on a map of Japan, and estimated the peak flowering time in each city. In addition, the estimates of peak flowering times obtained from images collected on Flickr were verified against the flowering dates published by the Tourism Bureau of the Japanese government .

Click on the map below to see an animation showing the peak blooming of cherry blossoms on a map of Japan, analyzed from hanami photos taken from March to May. You can see how the peak of flowering gradually moves northward.



From the photos posted on Flickr, the research team was able to almost accurately identify the peak flowering times in the two cities of Tokyo and Kyoto within a few days of official records from the Tourism Bureau. In addition, it was revealed from the photo data that cherry blossoms bloom out of season not only in spring but also in autumn. This flowering is called 'misunderstanding flowering', and it seems that it is easy to happen when the climate is unfavorable, and it is reported in the domestic media in Japan.

Even though it's autumn, the rows of cherry blossom trees suddenly bloom Why? 'Sakura' and 'Susuki' mysterious two shots | TBS NEWS DIG (1 page)

https://newsdig.tbs.co.jp/articles/-/204891

The following is from 2008 to 2018, showing when the cherry blossom photos posted on Flickr were taken. The peak is from March to May, but it also includes the winter season from October to December on rare occasions.



However, it has been pointed out that the cherry blossom season is getting earlier each year due to climate change.

A study published in 2022 found that on average, human-induced climate change has pushed the cherry blossom season in Kyoto by one to two weeks, and if the pace continues, it will be off by another week by the end of the 21st century. predicted.


by Tamaki Sono

In recent years, there has been growing interest in climate change caused by human factors, such as the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration due to the consumption of fossil fuels. The research team argues that analysis of photo data collected from SNS like this time may help to understand the impact of climate change on the environment.

in Web Service,   Science, Posted by log1i_yk