Our cities and suburban areas are the places that will absorb future human populations more than any other landscape. These population increases present both opportunities and challenges for urban centers. Opportunities exist because cities have the critical mass to support the infrastructure improvements necessary to reduce carbon and ecological footprints, create social cohesiveness and foster economic growth. The challenge is how transform urban buildings and infrastructure consistent with sustainability goals without significantly disrupting regional economies, the community’s fabric and the integrity of urban open spaces. SIG offers services and resources that can aid urban planners in overcoming challenges and creating sustainable cities by offering the following services.
Sustainable Communities Planning
- Development or assistance with sustainable community plans or “green plans”
- Low-emission transportation corridor strategy development and planning
- Existing conditions assessments and land use scenario modeling
- Research summary and synthesis
- Stakeholder engagement, plan visioning and workshop support
Urban Tree Canopy Mapping and Benefits Assessment
- High-resolution imagery processing to extract canopy data
- Precisely map tree locations, individual tree characterization and canopy extent
- Quantify benefits of urban forests
- Identify opportunities and locations for enhancing urban forests and open spaces
Wildland Urban Interface Planning and Research
- Quantifying and modeling wildfire hazards and risks
- Optimization of fuels treatments in the urban-wildland interface
- Development of community wildfire protection plans, including assessing the return on investment for hazard mitigation
Urban Stormwater Planning, Management and Research
- Hydrographic modeling and mapping
- Identification of green infrastructure opportunities
- Creation of stormwater best management practices
- Strategies for “low impact development” (LID) from bioswales and rain gardens to riparian restoration and reduction of non-point source pollution
Renewable Energy Siting and Urban Energy Metabolism Analysis
- High resolution mapping and ranking of renewable energy locations
- Estimation of cost and payback period for solar and other renewable energy infrastructure
- Emissions and energy use tracking, modeling and accounting for municipalities
- Strategic planning to reduce energy/carbon footprint through targeted infrastructure improvements
- Project constraints and opportunities mapping
Internet/broadband level of service mapping
Urban Ecosystem Market and Mitigation Banking Program
- Creation of mitigation/conservation banking programs to offset the impacts of development
- Performance monitoring of ecosystem conservation programs or restoration projects
- Restoration prioritization
Recent Projects – Sustainable Cities
Mooring Buoy Inventory for Development on Lake Tahoe
In 2016, SIG did a mooring buoy inventory on the California side of Lake Tahoe, from shoreline to 2000 feet…Learn More
Nationwide Crime Map for Maponics
Maponics Inc is a company that develops digital geographic boundaries for a number of large corporate clients, like Realtor.com, Trulia…Learn More
Mapping an Urban Heat Island Index for California
Urban heat islands are metropolitan areas that are notably warmer than the areas surrounding them. This extra heat comes from…Learn More
Energy and Carbon Verification for the Sacramento Region
SIG developed an urban forest analysis approach that can be used to track avoided pollutant emissions, carbon sequestration and other…Learn More
Our Team – Sustainable Cities
Karis Tenneson
Karis Tenneson, Director of the Environmental Mapping Domain at Spatial Informatics Group, leads a team of remote sensing and sustainability…Learn More
Jarrett Barbuto
Jarrett Barbuto is a geospatial analyst and research scientist for SIG Carbon. Prior to joining SIG, Jarrett was a supervisory…Learn More
John Dilger
John Dilger received a B.S. from the University of San Francisco (USF) in Environmental Science as well as a GIS…Learn More
Keith Pelletier
Keith C. Pelletier is a PhD candidate in the Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis Laboratory at the University of Minnesota…Learn More