Urban Mapping and Climate
This presentation explores urban mapping tools for climate and air quality data, featuring three speakers who discuss digital mapping platforms for tracking diesel emissions, construction impacts, and transportation equity. The discussion emphasizes the importance of purpose, process, and data justice when creating and implementing these environmental mapping tools.
Summary
This urban mapping and climate presentation begins with Dr. Vivek Shandas providing context about Portland's air quality challenges and establishing three key principles for evaluating mapping tools: purpose (why the tool was created), process (how communities are engaged), and data justice (who has access and ownership). He critiques existing platforms like EPA's EnviroAtlas and California's CalEnviroScreen for starting with data availability rather than community needs.
Micah then demonstrates the 'What's in Our Air' tool (whatsinourair.org), created collaboratively by Neighbors for Clean Air, Metro, Portland, and PSU. This tool maps construction permits within specified distances from any address, showing potential diesel impacts from building projects. Users can filter by time periods and impact levels, helping residents understand construction-related air quality risks in their neighborhoods.
Andrew Oliver presents the Getting There Together GIS mapping tool, developed during his PSU fellowship to address transportation equity. The comprehensive platform layers multiple datasets including transit networks, crash locations, employment data, demographics, and zoning information. Users can analyze relationships between transit access, affordable housing, bike infrastructure, and community demographics to support transportation justice advocacy.
The discussion concludes with participants exploring challenges of making complex data accessible to general audiences, the need for community-driven data collection, and the importance of combining quantitative mapping with personal stories. Speakers emphasize the proliferation of mapping tools and suggest creating a curated regional platform to organize and contextualize these resources for better community access.
Key Insights
- Shandas argues that effective mapping tools should be grounded in three fundamental principles: purpose (why the tool was developed), process (how communities are engaged), and data justice (who has access and ownership)
- Shandas criticizes EPA's EnviroAtlas for being developed by people with incredible access to environmental data but starting with data presence rather than addressing specific community challenges
- Shandas explains that CalEnviroScreen was designed specifically to provide policy information for environmental justice concerns, demonstrating purpose-driven tool development
- Micah demonstrates that the What's in Our Air tool allows users to see construction permits within 1500 meters of any location, helping residents understand potential diesel exposure from nearby building projects
- Micah explains that the tool helped her identify construction impacts while biking, allowing her to understand what was being built when she had to put on a mask due to idling equipment and dust
- Oliver reveals that the Getting There Together mapping tool was created during an 80-hour summer fellowship to address transportation equity through multiple data layers
- Oliver explains that the tool shows transit stops more than 500 feet from bike lanes and sidewalks, revealing accessibility gaps in the transportation network
- Shandas predicts a proliferation of mapping tools over the next few years and suggests the need for a curated regional space to organize tools by topic and potential impact
- Shandas announces that a new EPA and DEQ-funded diesel impact tool will emerge in two weeks, allowing users to explore different scenarios for reducing diesel exposure at schools and bus stops
- Sarah from Street Trust identifies the challenge of making complex transportation data accessible to general public with low policy knowledge while empowering communities to engage decision makers
- Ginger emphasizes the need to combine overwhelming digital data with personal stories, suggesting that knowing specific numbers like four people on a block having breathing difficulties would make information more relatable
- Shandas expresses reservations about using ESRI's proprietary story mapping platform due to concerns about a private company controlling community data and access
Topics
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