Nottingham seems to have turned a "first place finish" in the energy price increase rankings into a GIS services aimed at saving government and residents on electricity bills.
Nottingham was identified as the UK city most sensitive to rising electricity prices in a study by GIS specialist Esri UK and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). The study applied the technology to socio-economic data to map which areas of the UK will be hardest hit by rising energy prices this winter.
That turned into a grant.
The council won £200,000 in funding from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and is working with the Nottingham Energy Partnership and Esri to develop and deliver the maps, which go beyond standard static maps of energy flows. Dynamic mapping will comprise layers of information that may be updated to inform decisions on energy generation, development and reducing its carbon footprint.
The system, already in use internally, will be made available to the public. It's not clear how residents will use the dymnamic mapping but they can use it to find if their house might be a fit for solar panels and how much they'd save with new windows. The article is not clear on if the city has full 3D model of residences for calculating savings.
A shoutout is due to a father and son team who are helping Washington state get its redistricting done fairly.
Vancouver resident John Milem was dubbed the “ultimate redistricting geek” in a tweet Friday by Seattle Times politics writer Jim Brunner. On Sunday, the state Redistricting Commission passed a resolution recognizing Milem as the equivalent of the redistricting volunteer of the year. Milem describes himself as an “advocate for redistricting in the public interest.”
Without pay or position, the 75-year-old resident of Vancouver’s Fircrest Neighborhood attended all of the commission’s 18 public forums around the state and all of the commission’s other regular and special meetings in Olympia, with the exception of three. (He missed two meetings because he was taking part in Clark County’s redistricting process for county commissioner seats). His son, Mark, customized open-source software on which Milem developed independent state maps, suggestions and corrections that would streamline the election process and represent the character of communities.
Thank you for your service!
The Greater Bridgeport Regional Council (GBRC) is asking the state of Connecticut for a $1.4M grant to develop GIS mapping system to be shared by several towns.
GIS is designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage and present all types of geographically referenced data. It's the merging of cartography, statistical analysis, and database technology — a layering of up to 100 maps pinpointing waterways, septic systems, roads, wetlands and wells. A GIS integrates, stores, edits, analyzes, shares and displays geographic information for informed decision making.
I'm not aware of any systems that have a 100 layer limitation.
The Boston Biz Journal did a map of the wealthiest ZIP Codes in Massachusetts. (I don't live in any of them, but bike and run in many of them!) The data is from Esri; the map Google. I'm confident Esri is working to better integrate its data business with ArcGIS Online to enable just such maps.
- BBJ
