ESRI has just released a new e-Book in their GIS Best Practices series titled, GIS is a Green Technology. The 50-page publication contains a number of previously published case studies that illustrate how GIS is being applied to environmental and sustainability issues.
The stories included in this e-book detail GIS-based applications for innovative, sustainable solutions to many of today’s common environmental problems. Cascade County, Montana, uses GIS to map the optimum locations for wind farms and promote investment in this “green” energy source. Buffalo, New York, known as the City of Trees, maintains its urban forest inventory with GIS. Air pollution in Jakarta, Indonesia, is severe; in 2004, 46 percent of all illness in the city was respiratory related, but backed by GIS-based scientifi c studies, the government has implemented an ambitious plan to improve air quality. The release of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere is the fundamental cause of global warming; GIS is being used in the study and implementation of CO2 sequestration programs, which either capture the pollutant at its source or absorb it through the planting of vegetation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used GIS to restore the natural habitat of the Middle Rio Grande in New Mexico, and the City of Boston, Massachusetts, is implementing an ambitious solar energy program by using GIS to calculate the solar radiation available on city rooftops.
