53 Professionals use GIS to enhance environmental health and eliminate harmful contaminants. The Trust for Public Land (TPL) used GIS technology to demonstrate the fiscal impacts and economic benefits of parks in New York City. They found that parks not only mitigated harmful environmental outcomes but also boosted health, property values, and tourism. Their report provided a compelling financial incentive for policymakers to increase funding for the creation, protection, and maintenance of public parks. "We wanted to make sure people understand that, in addition to having a nice place to play and a break from the urban experience that a park offers, there are other indirect benefits in relation to air quality, stormwater management, and wildlife habitat. We wanted to prove that we can make the most of limited funding and meet multiple needs with parks, because they’re a big part of what makes a community healthy," said Mitch Hannon, TPL GIS program director. The report was instrumental in influencing policymakers’ short- and long-term funding decisions. The Los Angeles (LA) County Department of Parks and Recreation continues to assess equity and prioritize parks and recreational amenities where the most vulnerable people live. More parks are coming to LA County, many of them in neighborhoods where more green space is greatly needed. LA County Parks has begun restoring degraded lands—brownfields, landfills, and oil fields—as future parkland. Clement Lau, departmental facilities planner with LA County Parks, spoke to the growing opportunities to remediate land for parks. “At the county, we’re emphasizing the need for restoring degraded lands, especially in park-poor communities. We’ve developed parks on brownfields before and are working on converting a landfill into a regional park in Puente Hills. There are also opportunities to convert oil fields into additional parkland in Baldwin Hills.” Wildlife Conservation Society Canada (WCS Canada) is using GIS technology to protect Canada’s peatlands, which hold a staggering 150 billion tons of carbon. The organization uses GIS to measure peatland cover and carbon storage, record the lands’ protected status and risks from development, inform fieldwork, and prioritize conservation efforts. Environment “Over the past couple of decades, GIS has become a useful tool for peatlands work, especially for these large landscapes,” said Lorna Harris, director of the Forests, Peatlands, and Climate Change Program at WCS Canada. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has developed the Wisconsin PFAS Interactive Data Viewer to visualize the occurrence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) across the state. The tool allows them to map contamination sites while also recording locations where remediation efforts are under way. “PFAS have been around for almost 100 years,” Johnson said. “Two or three years ago [in 2020], there were about 3,000 chemicals that we knew about, and now we’re at 10,000. We’re learning something new every day—learning how they behave in the environment, and how they impact our health. We’re starting to understand a lot more about the science behind them and what we can do to mitigate their impact.” This initiative has been crucial in gaining stakeholder support to tackle PFAS, not only at the state level but also nationally. Drones, water sampling, and GIS technology are being used by the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) to record conditions and address the problem of algal growth and the invasive Asian clam in Lake Tahoe. The use of drones has proven effective in tracking the algae growth around the 72-mile shoreline of the lake. “Previously, we had to track the growth of algae based off small sub-samples,” Berry said. “Now, with the drone work, we can track algae much more spatially. We’re capturing sites with hundreds of meters of shoreline, and it’s easier to track algae growth.” In addition to routine monitoring, TERC’s research also focuses on more specific areas, such as invasive species control, lake currents, sediment resuspension dynamics, lake food webs, landslide risk, and wetlands performance. GIS is used to guide this work to monitor problem areas and enhance understanding. Using GIS, communities create maps that help maintain a healthy balance between humans and nature.
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