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Best wishes,
Susan Smith, Managing Editor

Industry News
Climate Change at the Local Level
By Susan Smith

Climate change has taken on epic proportions as everyone on the planet grows in awareness of their role as stakeholder, and the fact that everyone can make a difference, not just at the universal level but at the local and individual level as well. Where once climate change might have been the domain of a few Birkenstock-clad GreenPeace or Sierra Club members, it is now on the agenda of nearly every technology conference in the U.S.

A technology session at ESRI User Conference 2008 entitled “Climate Change GIS in Local Government” drew a large crowd. Presenters included:

• Jon Harrison, drafter of ESRI Local Climate Action plans, a member of the City Council and for the past three years, Mayor of Redlands.
• Greg Knight, Boston Redevelopment Authority, spearheading the Boston Solar Project
• Beth Jarosz, SANDAG, GIS Analyst for 7 years, with focus on land use and transportation

Jon Harrison opened with the question, Why is climate change a local government issue? In answer to that question, he said, “Globally, cities produce 75% of the GHG emissions produced on earth, but occupy 2 % of the earth’s surface.”

In Redlands, their first user group meeting drew an audience of those interested in establishing a Climate Protection Data Model, and sharing what others are doing in areas such as local government, forestry, and transportation. The audience was concerned with issues such as running out of water, and how the numerous coastal cities in California will be affected by global warming.

A local climate action plan was devised which

• Defines actions the local government will do to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions
• Defines actions for residents and businesses within the community to reduce their GHG emissions
• Set targets and establish tools and methods for measuring progress towards meeting those targets.

“If we work on our cities one pieces at a time we will effect a change,” stated Harrison. Governments are only about 6% inside their jurisdictional boundary, as other people also come from commuting and businesses.

Harrison believes that by using GIS and tracking activity individually, local governments can achieve downward trends. California has the goal of attaining 80% below 1990 emissions by 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Major categories for local climate action include -
Energy efficiency and conservation
*Water and wastewater systems
Green building
*Waste reduction and recycling
Climate friendly purchasing
*Renewable energy and low carbon fuels (photovoltaics, etc)
*Efficient transportation
*Land use and community design
*Storing and offsetting carbon emissions
*Promoting community and individual action

*Categories where GIS is most helpful

“Land use and community design decisions are made by what’s good for society as a whole,” said Harrison. “Our model is made by the individual who owns it, and allows people to build on agricultural areas.” GIS takes information from existing systems already out there, refines planimetric elements using location and time, and provides improved communication through visualization. Many cities by ordnance are increasing building standards and reducing energy consumption.

Harrison said that the job of cities and counties is to define the role of GIS in a local climate action plan. They need to ask themselves, What are their specific strategies? “They need to think about what the spatial data are to address that,” said Harrison. “Many cities and counties have resources as well as external resources. There is the Climate Change Data Model which just started, and may be able to be integrated with what you have.” ICLEI focused on a robust accounting system focused on a city as a whole, yet the accounting is not yet broken down to neighborhoods, and you can’t see what neighborhoods are doing well. “By using GIS you can see what is working and how to work more effectively.”

Sources for more information on local action plans:

U.S. Conference of Mayors Best Practices

League of California Cities Institute for Local Government - Best Practices

ICLEI – US – Local Action Plan Methodology

Local Government Commission – Policies and Technical Assistance

Harrison suggested that people share through their user group organizations.

Beth Jarosz, GIS Analyst for SANDAG for 7 years, does regional analyses of different types, land use change, and contributed to a chapter in SANDAG’s textbook on the quality of life. She spoke on “The role of GIS in Climate Action Planning at SANDAG,” a planning agency for region and county.

SANDAG got its start in the 1970s with an emphasis on transportation, climate and shoreline and habitat preservation, economic growth, crime, etc. “Being a council of governments, we have incentive funding to foster smart growth among cities,” explained Jarosz.

SANDAG is under contract with the California Energy Commission, doing a pilot project for developing a greenhouse gas reduction strategy using the techniques they use for Climate Action Planning (CAP).

The Project scope of CAP is as follows:

Phase 1 – analysis of GHG reduction options

Transportation and land use
Electricity and natural gas

Phase 2 – develop a series of policy recommendations – after analyzing phase 1

The Land use and transportation forecasting process involves a “multimodel forecasting process,” whereby they start out by figuring out the demographic and economic forecasting model. There are about 1 million more people living in San Diego now than in the past 25 years. Many people are living in northern counties and in Mexico and commuting in on the freeway network. “We take that information and do a subregional forecast,” said Jarosz. “We maintain information on each parcel of land and how each of those will build out.”

Cities/county forecast (UDM) works with the transportation forecasting model (TRANSCAD). Growth increases congestion, which creates changes around the region.

The land use and transportation forecasting process is stored in the Landcore geodatabase which stores information about current conditions, keeps planned land use, and the carrying capacity on parcels, such as how much will they change, how many additional units or jobs fit on that parcel of land. Flood plains, and steep slopes are all part of that land information system.

“Our forecast is heavily driven by local plans and policies,” said Jarosz. They use ArcGIS in the Climate Action Plan modeling to:

• Develop model inputs for land use and transportation
• To show presentations of ideas

GIS is used in developing an alternative land use scenario –

• Used ArcMap to select transit stations with high production and attraction –
• We want people to be walking to their transit stations not driving.
• GIS used in developing alternative land use scenario –
• ½ mile buffer around selected transit stations
• Selected all parcels within buffer that were not cut off from station by a walk barrier
• Changed planned land use mix and increased density in these target areas. – mix it up so that people could walk or bike to work (work being close to homes)

“In changing land use, it was very easy to turn off and on features like golf courses,” said Jarosz.

SANDAG did base-case growth projections on the housing change predicted between 2010-2030. “More housing units are going out into suburban areas, and most of the focus will be along our rail quarters,” said Jarosz. This also took into account job growth sprawls.

Preliminary results for land use and transportation scenario by 2030:

• Strategy – GHG Emission reduction –
• Business as usual N/A
• Smart growth land use – 1.4%
• Enhanced transit – 2.4%
• TDM measures – 16.5%
• Telecommuting 4.3%
• Zonal parking fees 11.8%
• Other measures 1.8%

“We brought everyone in who uses San Diego at all and we see lower carbon emissions overall. If we increased telecommuting, we had fairly significant decrease in GHG,” Jarosz pointed out. “We looked at car insurance based on how many miles you drive, parking fees, internalizing the cost of commute – that has the most significant impact on GHGs.”

Future applications for GIS to Climate Action Planning may include an evaluation of a 4D modeling component into transportation modeling, said Jarosz.

Jarosz noted various areas under consideration such as: at what point does urban area go from walk friendly to car dependent, taking into account distance to transit, density of development, side walk completeness; design for walk/bike, distance to transit station, diversity of uses (e.g. commercial, residential, office, etc.)?

Next steps include completing the land use and transportation scenario and the beginning of green building.

“As part of our modeling system, we have transportation modeling,” concluded Jarosz. “Ours was a reduction from our models planned for 2030. Solar is a divisive topic in San Diego right now. We hope that we’ll build renewable energy sources, but the question as to where they will run is still undecided.”

Greg Knight, senior GIS application developer, Boston Redevelopment Authority, and Hannah Epstein, Solar Boston, Mayor’s office, City of Boston spoke on the Boston Solar Project.

Knight outlined the progress of the project, from Boston’s joining ICLEI in 2000, to the 2005 U.S. Mayor Climate Protection Agreement with Kyoto Protocol targets, to the executive order for climate action created in 2007.

The first thing they did was create a green building action plan, said Knight, which states:

All private projects over 50,000 sq feet must be LEED certifiable.
All public projects must be LEED silver certified.

Next, they joined SolarAMerica Initiative (DOE)
By 2015 photovoltaics will –

• Provide 5-10 Gigawatts of new electric capacity to U.S. grid
• Avoid 10 million metric tons per year of CO2
• Employ 30K new workers in the PV industry
• Achieve grid parity
• 25MW installed solar capacity by 2015
• Equal emphasis on PV and solar water heating

The main goals of the Solar Boston Initiative are mapping where they are going and could go, market growth, noting that their installed capacity increased nearly 100% from 2007-2008.

In addition:
49.5% average annual PV market growth rate (2002-2007)
47.*% average annual growth PV and SWH necessary to meet mayors goal for 25 MW by 2015

To date Solar Boston has mapped the top ten largest rooftops in Boston, with the goal of mapping the city.

Mapping policy priorities include:

• Showcase current installations
• Identify areas of problems
• Provide basic information on solar to property owners
• Provide interactive tool targeting PV system sizing and output
• Benchmark against other mapping efforts

The City of Boston Mayor’s Office is the project lead. Solar Boston has a two-year $550,000 initiative to increase the amount of solar energy in the city. They began the project brainstorming in March, 2008; from April to June they did development and user testing; and in July the soft launch.

Solar Boston used the following technologies:

• Application Server - ArcGIS Server 9.3 FLEX API private beta, tiled basemap dynamic overlays, GEORSS
• Database Server - ArcSDE 9.2 SQL
• Feature Data Server 2005
• Windows Server 2003
• Web client – Adobe Flash Player v9.x plug in

Epstein said they have a map of solar photovoltaic installations in the city, their ratings, and layer tools. In the historic district, homeowners will have to go through a special review process to put solar panel in their roofs. There are tools within the software that allow homeowners or others to click on a rooftop and get a report on the solar potential for that particular building, which offers the available solar radiation for each month of the year. It reports on roof areas and usable roof areas and can calculate on the fly usable roof area.

Knight said they are thinking of adding live data feeds, to get real time data output from a device. In terms of calculating solar potential, in addition to selecting the roof, they could draw polygon tools for planning where to put a solar panel. He added that the metering process is getting revamped at the moment.

Building heights are represented on top of the bare earth DEM, and Spatial Analyst extension is used to calculate a sky map, which takes into account shading from adjacent structures on a particular roof. It doesn’t take into account trees, Knight said, but they’re thinking of adding that in the future. “It is not supposed to be an engineering solution, it’s just designed to get people interested in it,” he said.

Visit Solar Boston for further information.

Top News of the Week

DMTI Spatial, a leading provider of enterprise location intelligence solutions, has joined the BlackBerry Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Alliance Program. As part of the program, DMTI will gain access to support services from Research In Motion (RIM) as well as business and marketing resources.

GeoEye, Inc. announced a slip in the launch of its GeoEye-1 satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. While the launch vehicle and satellite are on the pad and ready for a launch later this week, United Launch Alliance (ULA) advised the Company today that Hurricane Hanna's projected path off the east coast of Florida has impacted the availability of certified Delta II launch specialists available to travel to VAFB to support the GeoEye-1 launch. ULA is currently planning the launch for no earlier than September 7 and is taking all of the steps necessary to support this date. GeoEye will announce a new date as soon as it is confirmed by our launch provider.

Acquisitions/Agreements/Alliances

Intermap Technologies announced they have expanded their relationship with Global Mapper Software, LLC, a producer of geographic information system (GIS) software. Global Mapper will now offer Intermap’s high-resolution digital elevation models, orthorectified radar images, contour line maps, and optimized triangulated irregular network (TIN) models to its users worldwide.

MetaCarta, Inc., the provider of geographic search and referencing solutions, announced a partnership with Ardent Management Consulting (ArdentMC). Under the agreement, ArdentMC will integrate MetaCarta solutions with Federal, State, and Local Homeland Security systems. ArdentMC Consultants provide system development solutions for the Department of Homeland Security's Integrated Common Analytical Viewer (iCAV) Program, a geospatial-intelligence analytic tool that allows DHS and its mission partners to better prepare, prevent, respond and recover from natural and man-made disasters. The iCAV System unites Homeland Security mission partners through an integrated geographic information system for web-based dissemination, analysis and visualization.

Spot Image Corp. announced that it has been named a Google Earth Enterprise Partner. Spot Image Corp. will leverage this new partnership with Google to deliver imagery through current and planned web-based solutions to clients through Google Earth. Spot Image Corp. will develop ‘ready-to-use’ image data sets for Google Earth and Google Earth Enterprise users in addition to creating a variety of advanced new information services and solutions. Spot Image Corp. plans to tap into the Google Earth Enterprise architecture to integrate the rich information content of SPOT satellite imagery into maps (2D) and Globes (3D).

Geospatial Systems, Inc. (GSI) and Leica Geosystems AG (Leica) announced a partnership agreement to bring to market a new generation of image capture and dissemination systems for airborne mapping and surveillance applications.

XOHM WiMAX mobile broadband customers can have information customized for their locations and personalized to their needs with new Sprint ecosystem agreements that help pioneer subscriber location services.

Topcon Corporation of Tokyo has announced the acquisition of Voxis, Inc., a United States-based company acknowledged as a global leader in laser scanner technology and high resolution motion systems. The acquisition of Voxis of Point Richmond, California, culminates a development relationship with Topcon of more than two years, which resulted in the recent announcement of the company’s GLS-1000 laser scanner.

Infotech Enterprises America, Inc., a global GIS enterprise, has entered into a long term agreement with Intergraph’s Registered Solutions Center (RSC). The RSC is one of Intergraph’s Synergy membership programs, with a focus on assisting Infotech build long term client relationships based on providing technical expertise and reliable support for the implementation of business solutions. This program brings extreme value, offering Infotech access to the latest G/Technology applications and software while supporting Intergraph’s GIS software products. As a partner and provider to Intergraph for over 17 years, Infotech is excited to continue the relationship supporting Intergraph’s software technology.

Announcements

u-blox Holding AG announced that Microsoft Corporation selected its latest positioning engine, u-blox 5, for a new "GPS Locator" USB stick. The "GPS Locator" USB stick will be bundled with the next release of MapPoint, Microsoft's business travel and map software package.

DMTI Spatial (DMTI), a provider of enterprise location intelligence solutions, announced that it has opened a new office in Ottawa, Ontario. The office will serve as the company's base of operations in Canada's national capital and the expansion was necessary to meet the growing demand from government clients for industry leading location intelligence solutions.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a United Technologies Corp. company, will help scientists map, measure and monitor the environment by boosting the next-generation GeoEye-1 commercial satellite into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Sept. 4. GeoEye-1 will be onboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket, procured by Boeing Launch Services, which will be powered by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's RS-27A engine. It will be the 224th flight boosted by the RS-27 family of engines.

RapidEye AG, a Brandenburg-based geospatial information provider, has launched the world’s first commercial satellite constellation, making reality its goal of delivering the next generation of geospatial information services.
The satellites, launched on Aug. 29 from a DNEPR-1 rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, will circle the globe 15 times daily allowing RapidEye to download image data from each satellite to an X-band antenna in northern Norway. The data will then be transmitted to the processing facilities/control station at RapidEye headquarters in Brandenburg/Havel, where it will be analyzed for customers in various industries.

Awards

NAVTEQ has been selected by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to support deployment of the "Connected Traveler" program as part of Caltrans' award of the SAFE TRIP-21 contract by the US DOT. California's program, which will enable SAFE TRIP-21, is termed the "Connected Traveler".

Fugro EarthData’s Texas Benthic Mapping Project won top honors in the annual Geospatial Products and Services Excellence Awards competition, sponsored by the Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors (MAPPS). Named “Project of the Year,” the company’s landmark effort to automate seagrass habitat mapping along the U.S. Gulf Coast pioneered a new semi-automated process for image classification; a task that formerly required time-intensive manual photointerpretation methods.

GeoNorth is pleased to announce that the City of Sherwood, Oregon has received a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) award from ESRI at the 2008 International Users Conference. The award is in recognition of the City’s success with a rapid implementation of an enterprise GIS to address multiple departmental needs as well as providing a solution for public access. As part of this project GeoNorth provided business consulting, data conversion, software development, and technology implementation services.

Training

Geographic information system (GIS) professionals and managers around the world are encouraged to attend a complimentary ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 Seminar this fall. From September through November, GIS users across industries will be able to get a jump start on what's new in the ArcGIS software suite. Attendees will learn directly from ESRI staff how the latest version of ESRI software improves an organization's entire GIS workflow.

People

Intergraph has named John K. Graham president of its Security, Government & Infrastructure (SG&I) Division. Graham, an experienced industry executive with significant software, services and technology experience, will be responsible for global sales, operations, services and product development for the division.

New Products

ESRI's ArcGIS Business Analyst 9.3 desktop software is now available. The new release, which was developed based on client feedback, includes a set of general enhancements to the reports, analysis, trade area, and territory design tools. These applications will now fulfill the analysis requirements of businesses, organizations, and government agencies of all sizes that must provide solid answers to location-related site selection and marketing questions. Other improvements include streamlined software installation and better documentation.

Travelers worldwide know that they can preview holiday destinations by visiting Google Earth to view pictures from panoramio.com, articles from Wikipedia or videos from YouTube. Now, Webcams.travel makes it possible to see what destinations all over the world really look like at this moment. Webcams.travel makes this possible by providing access to thousands of webcam pictures via its Webcam Community now accessible in 24 languages. You can easily visit world famous places with Webcams.travel and Google Earth by visiting: http://www.webcams.travel/google-earth/

Webcam owners can add their webcam to www.webcams.travel for free and place it at the right location on the map. The subscribed webcam may be available on Google Earth and Google Maps very short time later.

ArcGIS users now have access to a new premium map service in ArcGIS Online. The USA Prime Imagery premium service includes i-cubed's Nationwide Prime 1-meter or better resolution imagery for the continental United States. Included with this imagery are i-cubed's 15-meter eSAT imagery at medium-to-large scales and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Blue Marble: Next Generation 500-meter resolution imagery at small scales. The 2D maps and 3D globe services of i-cubed can be leveraged by ArcGIS users to author and publish maps and perform situational analysis.

Circle Twelve Inc announced commercial availability of the DT Collaborate extension for ESRI’s ArcGIS software, the world’s leading geospatial information system application. The DT Collaborate extension adds new features and capabilities to ArcGIS when used in conjunction with the DiamondTouch table from Circle Twelve.

ORBIT Geospatial Technologies announced the release of Orbit GIS 4.3 for Mac OSX on G4, G5 and Intel Dual Core machines. The Orbit GIS Desktop solution now comes with full OGC WMS support, raster processing tools and over 85 new and improved functionalities.
Download your copy now from the website.

IDV Solutions released Visual Fusion Server 3.5 (VFS), the latest version of its visual composite application platform. This release expands VFS’s ability to connect disparate data sources and empowers users with upgrades that make application building faster and easier.
The release introduces new connectors for Oracle 10g and 11g and SQL Server 2008, enhanced support for Microsoft's Business Data Catalog, and the ability to convert existing SharePoint lists and libraries for use in Visual Fusion applications.

Blue Marble Geographics has recently released Geographic Transformer 6.0, which contains the most powerful raster transformation tools available today. This major version upgrade is now driven by the same XML based GeoCalc data source found in Geographic Calculator 7.1.

Geographic Transformer 6.0 may be used in conjunction with Geographic Calculator 7.1 under the new Blue Marble Desktop interface. This latest version of the Geographic Transformer now allows users to choose higher order polynomial transformation models (up to fifth order) for true warping and accurate reprojection. Other new features and enhancements are listed below. Upgrades for existing licenses are always available, contact our sales group for details.

NAVTEQ, a global provider of digital map data for vehicle navigation and location-based solutions announces the availability of NAVTEQ Traffic Patterns in Germany. This is the first NAVTEQ traffic product available in Europe and marks the beginning of a dedicated effort to expand NAVTEQ's content-rich, high-quality traffic information outside of North America.

Letters to the Editor

Susan,

Thanks very much for covering the Homeland Security Geospatial Data Model.

For those who might be interested in the tools and the model itself, here's a link to the web location:

http://www.fgdc.gov/dhsgdm

Thanks,

Mark Eustis
SAIC GMO Support Team lead

Susan,
Do you know where wind and solar power studies have been done using the latest GIS tools and say wind models? I would like to initiate or add to studies along this line.

Andy Murphy

Eds. Note: Andy,

I'm going to refer you to Intermap as they're the only ones I know doing this for wind at the moment, although I'm sure there are many others. Also, there was a lot of talk at the GeoWeb Conference about using GIS data for green building, and building information modeling, which are reliant on those types of wind and solar analyses for site and structural planning.

Best regards,

Susan Smith
Managing Editor
GISCafe & GISWeekly

http://www10.giscafe.com/nbc/articles/view_weekly.php?section=Magazine&articleid=575103 

Around the Web

Google 'starting from scratch' with own browser, Chrome CNET.News.com, September 2, 2008


Events